2020: Emergency Exit (12 page)

He figured they had a five to six hour lead on him at best, and if they’d left before two or three in the morning, they’d have been well ahead of the drones heading west after dawn. They could make it all the way to Montana, but there was no map of Montana, so they probably weren’t going there. In all likelihood, they had gone as far west as they could, as fast as they could—he dragged his finger across the interstate on the map—and then began to head south—his finger indicated Rapid City. But they would hide during the day, or the drones would easily find them, and it seemed they were aware of that. It was his job now to determine the general area in which they were hiding—his finger tapped the portion of Theodore Roosevelt National Park south of Medora—and make sure he was watching for them when night fell. “Lions,” he mumbled, waving off the questioning look from his driver. “Dead lions.” Eddie smiled.

NINETEEN: (Ryan) “Like Minds”

Danny was pacing back and forth in the cave. I heard him tell Wes, “He’s still coming.” And I figured he meant the captain. When Wes didn’t disagree the idea became a bigger part of my own thoughts. Maybe Danny was giving him too much credit. Or maybe he wasn’t. Danny mentioned he felt like someone was aware of our every move, comparing it to the Wicked Witch of the West watching Dorothy through her magic ball. To Danny, our path seemed too predictable, our footsteps too visible, not unlike a blood trail to a predator. I was trying to be more optimistic, declaring my belief that we’d seen the last of the giant captain. But I knew he wasn’t going to like that we’d escaped last night. If this hadn’t already been personal, he was probably going to take that move personally. He could still be coming after us.

The four new people in our group wasted no time in making themselves useful. The two men, Nathan and Blake, helped pile and scatter sand at the front of our cave so it was nearly impossible to perceive an entrance there. Our tire tracks had been further hidden by windblown sand. This was as good a hiding spot as we could find right now, covered overhead by three stories of cold dirt and stone. No drone would pick up our heat signal through that. The girl, Emily, stayed close to her mother. She seemed scared.
Thank you, Captain Obvious
. Hayley kept checking on her, and I could tell they’d developed a friendly bond. The mother, well, I couldn’t take my eyes off Tara, and she didn’t seem to dislike the attention. I tried to make casual conversation, but my heart was pounding in my throat, and I likely came across as quite the fool.

“How did you get here?” I asked.

“Here, here? As in the cave? Or…?” she replied with a faint smile.

I’m such an idiot.
Even I had no idea what I meant. She sounded as beautiful as she looked. That only flustered me more. “Uhh…” I faked being summoned and excused myself to go “help someone with something,” but my mind—and eyes—kept going back to her. Unfortunately, she intercepted many of my stolen glances at her, and the anatomical direction of some of those quick peeks was rather embarrassing.

I moved over by the cave entrance and gazed out a small hole into the bright afternoon sky.
Why couldn’t Tara have been ugly?
That would have been so much easier. In fact, we probably would have just left her in Medora then.
But no, I had to go and insist we bring them.
That beautiful long brown hair hanging in braids beside her tanned face…the cowgirl attire with the low-cut white tank, unbuttoned plaid shirt and skintight jeans. Those muscular arms and well-defined curves.
Couldn’t she at least have left more to the imagination?
Instead I was imagining her in even less, and experiencing sensations I hadn’t felt in years. My eyes could get me in trouble with her. I slumped down to the floor and leaned my head against the wall.

Hayley sat down next to me, leaning her head on my shoulder. “You look stressed.”

I laughed. Then I sighed. “Yeah.”

Tara was standing by Emily with her back turned to us. She bent over to hand her daughter something, and as I watched her do so I was aware of Hayley’s eyes watching mine.
Talk about embarrassing.
“She’s pretty, isn’t she?” Hayley whispered.

Stunning
. “But married,” I said, tapping my own ring, still embarrassed I’d been so obvious.

“Maybe.” She traced a circle in the dirt with her finger. “Or maybe not. You do still wear yours.”

Touché
. I looked down at my ring and regretted the depth of my sudden feelings for Tara.
Sophie. Dang it.
Sorry, Sophie
.

“Mom wouldn’t care, Dad,” Hayley added.

How did she…
? “You don’t know that,” I replied with a little too much edge.

“Hayley, will you play cards with me?” Emily asked, interrupting our conversation.

“You bet, Em.” Hayley stood up and walked away, but not before looking back at me and saying, “Yes, I do, Dad.”

Dang it
. The girl could read me like a book. I lay back on the floor and closed my eyes. God and I hadn’t been that close in awhile, but I managed to piece together a little prayer in my mind. It was a jumbled collection of thoughts, and I fell asleep mid process, but I knew if God did exist (and if He was listening) He knew what I was thinking and what I was feeling. If Sophie was there with him, she knew how much I missed her and that I’d give anything to have her back. I had to stay away from Tara.
Yeah, right. Good luck with that!

As I drifted off to sleep, I didn’t feel Tara cover me with a blanket, and I missed Hayley’s pursuant smile. The intended “quick nap” turned into a few hours, though when I awoke I felt as if I’d barely slept. Stress sure could take a lot out of you. I got up and made sure Danny slept a couple hours too. He was on high alert, and didn’t want to miss anything, but we were as safe as we were going to get for a while. He needed to take advantage of that fact and rest a little now.

We woke Danny and Cameron up around five o’clock, about an hour and a half from darkness. It was the girls’ turn to nap for a while. The rest of us needed to prepare for our next move.

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Captain Eddie and his seventy-three men arrived in Medora around four in the afternoon. The drones had been here hours before and bombed the town repeatedly. Apparently, these people had been too far from the nearest airstrips and had managed to evade the original chemical bombs. A few farmers had avoided the drone bombings and other Qi Jia patrols found them heading north towards the Canadian border. Before execution, a couple of them had spoken of some people who had passed through and urged the town to flee for Canada or Hawaii.

The confessing prisoners had been killed before Eddie could interrogate them, but based on the descriptions they’d given, he had little doubt his “lions” had not only passed through here, but were probably the people they spoke of.
Perfect
. They had left shortly after 9 a.m. but likely hadn’t gone far, probably no more than an hour or so, and most likely south. Now that he knew there were only about a dozen of them, he knew he had more than enough men to handle the task.

Eddie divided his men into three squads, each covering one of the main roads south from Medora towards Rapid City. If they didn’t come down those roads, they’d have to travel one of the smaller roads between them, and there was no way they’d get by the THIRST systems doing that. The trap was set. It was time for the hunt to end. Captain Eddie, his brother Lazzo, and twenty other men set up camp on the middle route. And they waited.

TWENTY: “Check”

Chess is a primitive game. A few pieces, with specifically designated moves, face off against their likenesses on the other side, and after typically a great length of time, the battle concludes with one of two possible outcomes: checkmate or stalemate. Checkmate, in this situation, meant death for us. As pawns in this grand scheme, our options were limited, and we knew we were being circled and even somewhat manipulated by the rooks, knights, bishops and a particularly evil queen. The queen, Captain Eddie in this scenario, could come out of nowhere and take us with far more aggressive and effective strategies than the only move we could make as a pawn. There was no going back as a pawn—if we got caught in the open, we were done for. The advantage was to every other piece in the game. It sucked being a pawn.

No one understood our limitations and potential risks better than Danny. When he called Dad and Wes over and started his first question with, “If this were a chess match,” it was clear he was trying to put us several moves ahead. We listened to his reasoning. “Okay. We have to assume the captain found the bag. And, as a result, we have to assume he also has the maps. My guess is he’s pretty pissed he let us get away, and if he managed to connect the dots with the rifles and linked those to our vehicles, he’s probably made several other connections as well. We have no choice but to imagine we’ve made this into some kind of personal battle of wits with him.
Like chess
. We have to imagine he’s sitting outside our cave right now, waiting for us to come out to him. We can’t afford to assume for even a second that he’s not.” He allowed that ominous thought time to sink in.

“The problem is…we have to come out. We can’t stay here. More and more troops are probably on the way, and we don’t have nearly enough supplies to last us for more than a couple days. We need water. We need food. And we need to keep moving, or we’ll soon have no other moves.”

No one said anything. We just nodded. “Grandpa, you and Wes were checking out the maps,” Danny continued. “How many routes south to Rapid City are there?”

 “From here to Highway 12…” Wes replied, pointing at the map in our remaining atlas. “There are three solid routes south in North Dakota and another if we crossed into Montana and went south on 7. That’s going to be the most wide-open one, but could therefore also be the riskiest. All the roads connect at Belle Fourche. If I were this captain, I’d be waiting for us there.” He put his finger firmly on the map. “In Belle Fourche.”

Danny looked around at the group. There were more nods, but Danny didn’t seem convinced. “I don’t know if I’m outthinking myself here or not, but that seems like the most obvious plan to me as well, and that’s why I don’t think he’s done that.” He rubbed his forehead. “Let’s say we’re right, and this guy is here and tracking us. How far ahead do you think he’d want to go to wait for us? He has to know we’re not traveling by day. We can’t, or the drones would have found us. If we’re still alive, he knows we’re only moving by night, so Belle Fourche is way too far for us to have gone. You’re right, he may eventually get there, but my money is on him trying to anticipate our next move and cutting us off before we even get that far.”

“So what do you think he’s doing, Danny?” Dad asked.

“I think…there wasn’t a Montana map in that case. We never figured to go through that far west. We knew we had to get to Rapid City as fast as we could. If I were him and I laid out those maps, I’d see a general route we’d be taking. I’d try to get ahead of us, but not too far, and I’d try to cover all our options to be absolutely certain to get us. I don’t think he’s looking at Montana. I could be wrong, but I think he’s set up to cut us off before we get to South Dakota. On this map there are three main routes south. If we take any one of them, I think we’re dead. I think the only way to go is the fourth, through Montana, and hope we sneak by on the outside.”

Again, no one responded. What he said made sense, but then he continued with the thought in the back of our minds. “But.” He again looked at us. “What if he thought there was no Montana map in there because we had that one with us and needed it for our route? What if he is, or isn’t, as smart as we give him credit for? And what if that was his logical reasoning all along? What if that seemed so obvious to him and he took all of his men to the same route? He’d be going all in with his chips, but if that’s what he did and we walk right into it, we’re dead. No doubt.”

Dad finally spoke. “I don’t think he did that, Danny.”

“Okay.” Danny looked at him and waited, suggesting he continue.

Dad started pacing. “In a poker game, that would be like going all in without looking at your cards. Or in chess, like leaving your queen in an open diagonal line with your opponent’s bishop. Maybe you’d get lucky. Or maybe you’d lose your best advantage. I don’t think he plays that way. This guy seems like he understands the way we think. If he does, he can’t be thinking we’d go through Montana. It wasn’t on any of the maps, and it’s out of our way. It’s the longer way to get to where we want to go. He can’t think we’re going there.”

“Let’s say I agree with you,” Danny responded. “How many of you are completely comfortable with the decision to go that way?”

We all raised our hands. Either way we had no way of knowing what we were walking into, and who knew if we would even make it that far. Or maybe we’d overestimated this captain and he was nowhere near us, and our worries about his ambitions were in vain.

“Okay then,” Danny continued. “It’s almost dark.” Pointing at Blake and Nathan, he asked, “You two know the roads around here pretty well, right?” They nodded. “We need to travel as remotely as possible out of this park, and then we need to cut over to Montana without coming close to the interstate. Can that be done?” Again they nodded and started discussing the best possible route. “I’ll leave it to you,” Danny said. “You get me to Highway 7 in Montana, and I’ll take it from there.”

“Got it,” Blake said.

“Perfect.” Danny patted him on the shoulder, walking towards the trucks. “We leave in an hour.”

I could almost hear our hearts pounding off the walls of the cave. He came walking back a minute later with a shovel Tara’s dad had given us. “Let’s clear the entrance out and get ready to go.”

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A little more than 150 miles south of the cave, Captain Eddie had moved his men into concealed ambush positions where the three roads south met Highway 20. Comfortable their THIRST systems could blanket ten miles in every direction, he was satisfied they had the sixteen to twenty mile gaps between their three patrols covered. On the other hand, one outlier still troubled him, and that was the alternative route down through Montana. Two times now he’d had these people where he should have been able to capture them. If they made it past him a third time, he was going to start looking incompetent to his own men, and nothing led to rebellion quicker than incompetence. Highway 323 south through Montana was only eighteen miles west of the men on Camp Crook Road, but that was beyond the extent of their radar. If he was to believe the intel numbers, he was confident he could take a few members from each of the three current squads and send twelve men to guard the Montana route. He had an extra THIRST set, and that would cover every likely American travel scenario, so he decided to do just that. It would weaken each patrol a little, but not enough to hurt them against a dozen or so lightly armed, unsuspecting Americans.