Hell's Fortress (20 page)

“I suggest you reconvene your meeting after we’re gone. If we fail, the men of the church will be dead and refugees will flood into the valley by the thousands. The women will need to mount a final defense of their homes and children. Prepare yourselves.”

He thought of Grandma Cowley’s diary and the founding of Blister Creek. Wouldn’t it be ironic if Blister Creek ended in the same way it had begun? Women and their children, alone in a hostile wilderness.

He rose to his feet and the three other men followed.

“Wait, Jacob,” Fernie called. “Please, can we talk alone before you go?”

“Leave him be, woman,” Smoot said. “He’s got enough weight on his shoulders without you adding to it. Come on, brothers.”

“Jacob?”

Jacob continued toward the door, ashamed that he was so frustrated, so twisted up inside that he couldn’t stop long enough to defend his wife against Elder Smoot. It was too much. All of it, more than he could bear.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

For several moments Eliza and Steve stood embracing and she didn’t care about the smell, or his filthy clothes, or the fact that he was thin and bony. He was alive. That was enough for now.

“I never expected to find you here.”

Steve gave a thin smile. “Where else would we meet? I was heading east, and I assume you were on your way west to look for yours truly. It was either Vegas or nowhere.”

His breath came out in a wheeze, and he was wobbly on his feet. The very act of standing and holding her seemed to cost him. What had those monsters done to him? And why?

Steve looked over her shoulder at the other two. “Hey, Miriam. Good to see you again.”

“And you. Alive, that’s nice to see. I wasn’t sure.” Miriam looked him over. “Of course you look like hell, you know.”

He grinned back. “I’ve
felt
better too.” He took in the third member of the group. “Grover Smoot. Hey.” There was an obvious question in this last bit, as in, what the devil was he doing here?

Miriam grabbed Grover’s arm and dragged him past Eliza and Steve and deeper into the room.

When they were gone, Eliza looked into Steve’s eyes and put a hand on his bearded cheek. “I’m so sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

“I wanted to look for you, but the drones pinned us in the valley all winter. I only broke out a week ago.”

“I figured it was something like that. You should have stayed. I’d be happier if you were safe.”

“No way. My place is with you.” She felt suddenly shy and dropped her hand. “Do they give you anything to eat?”

“Not since they brought us here, no. Those poor fools with the guns don’t even have food.”

“Water?”

“Sometimes. Never enough.”

She took his hand and led him to the side of the room opposite the staring prisoners, where they sat down with their backs against the wall. Miriam and Grover had already leaned against the wall and slid to seated positions on the floor some distance away. Miriam studied the other prisoners. Grover looked at his hands.

“I didn’t expect Miriam,” Steve said in a low voice. “Didn’t she have a baby? Is it okay?”

“The baby is fine.”

“And isn’t that one of Lillian Smoot’s brothers? Why him?”

Eliza explained what had happened with the refugees and the drone attack. Instead of traveling with Lillian and Stephen Paul, she’d found herself on the road with Miriam, Grover, and Officer Trost. She told how they’d passed through the mountains and down to Cedar City, where Miriam had stolen horses and weapons. Then, about the flight into the deserts of Utah and Nevada.

Steve chewed on his lip. “And Trost?”

She shook her head. “There was a sniper. Miriam killed him. But not before Trost . . . he didn’t make it.”

“Ah, crap. He was a good man.” He stopped, as if expecting her to fill in more details.

But that was as much as she wanted to tell of the ordeals of the past week. Anyway, they seemed petty compared to the horrors her fiancé must have suffered the past nine months since he
’
d gone to California to help the FBI and promptly disappeared. Whatever he’d faced had sapped his vitality and left him this starving scarecrow.

A muffled explosion sounded in one of the floors above them. The building shuddered and people curled into balls with their hands on their heads. A pair of acoustic tiles fell from the ceiling, then the building stopped shaking.

“Are they shelling the building?” she asked.

“Yeah, for about three days now. Today is the worst.”

“The soldiers seemed to think someone spotted our caravan entering the parking garage.”

“Could be. I figure it’s only a matter of time.”

Until what? Until the building collapsed? Until a shell flew in the open window and vaporized them all?

“Can’t the army fight them off?” she asked.

“I don’t think they have the fuel for a major offensive. I’ve been looking out the window when it’s quiet, and most of the federal troops are on foot. They used to be coming in and out of this building, but most have moved to the mall across the street. It’s taken less damage. I keep hoping they’ll move us too.”

“You said the shelling has been going on for three days. Were you here long before that?”

“About a week. Before that, we were in Caesars Palace on the Strip. About a half mile from here.”

“I’ve been there,” Eliza said, marveling. “That’s where one of my brothers worked when he was a Lost Boy.”

“It’s rubble now. A pair of missiles flattened it. They evacuated us just in time. After that, they kept us in a warehouse for a couple of days, then they captured this building and moved us up here. They gave us each a full MRE when we arrived. Some people gulped theirs and puked them back up. I was lucky. A soldier warned me it would be the last time we ate in a while, so I made it last. He was right. They haven’t fed us since.”

She was horrified. “Wait, I thought you said that was a week ago.”

He gave a weary nod. “You don’t miss it after a while. The thirst is another matter.”

Miriam rose to her feet a few yards away, apparently having scoped out the conference room to her satisfaction. She made her way over to the prisoners and engaged them in conversation. Grover stayed behind. He met Eliza’s gaze, then he looked away.

Poor Grover. Miriam was so hard on him, and then Trost had died under horrific circumstances that may or may not have been the boy’s fault. He seemed incapable of pulling himself together.

It hadn’t been that many years since Eliza was Grover’s age, anxious about finding her place in the community. Uncertain of her future.

Steve lowered his voice. “He looks terrified.”

“He is. He has been all along.” She took his hand. “What happened in California?”

“I can’t remember how much I told you when I called.”

“Not much, only that Agent Fayer was in trouble and you needed to go to Los Angeles to help.”

“That’s right. It’s been so long. So much has happened.” He shook his head. “We had a couple of traitors. Huang, who was from the Bay Area, and some computer guy by the name of Boggs. They were Californians first, and Americans second. When the state turned, so did they. They blew Fayer’s cover and the state arrested her and the rest. The entire L.A. field office was being held as hostages. I came out to negotiate. Then the war broke out and it all went to hell. You remember an agent named Sullivan? Kind of a dick?”

“Fayer’s partner?” she said, uncertain. “They were on a stakeout of the California governor, or something like that, right?”

“That’s the guy. Anyway, he and Chambers—he was in on that Zarahemla operation a few years back—broke out and liberated one of our helicopters. The rest of us grabbed guns and shot our way to the roof. The helicopter picked us up and we fled for Nevada. Someone else should have taken the stick. Sullivan didn’t know what the hell he was doing. But I’d torqued my wrist in the fight, and Sully made up some lie about flight experience. We took small-arms fire and went down in Death Valley. Lost some people.”

“Wow, that’s terrible. Fayer wasn’t one of them, was she?”

“No, she’s still with us. That’s who Miriam is talking to.”

Miriam squatted next to the thin, coughing woman in the shorts and tank top. Eliza stared. The FBI agent from Salt Lake had been strong and athletic before; now she looked about ninety pounds, old, and feeble.

“And the guy with the Yankees cap is Chambers. Don’t think you’ve met him.”

“No, but I wouldn’t have recognized Fayer either. She looks awful.”

“Sullivan died in the fire,” Steve continued. “Guess he paid for his BS. Also another agent, who was trying to pull Sully out. Perez.”

Eliza started. “Eduardo?”

“That’s right, Eduardo Perez. Did you know him? Wait, he was in Blister Creek once, wasn’t he?”

Steve went on to describe how the survivors had trekked across the desert on foot. It was winter and cold, but bone-dry.

Eliza’s thoughts trailed back to an illicit kiss all those years ago between a teenage girl and a young FBI agent who she’d taken for a Mexican laborer. Eduardo. Now he was dead.

“Here it comes,” Steve said, breaking her from her memories.

The thump of artillery shells grew louder, as if the bombardment were following a known pattern through the center of Las Vegas. Then another thundering blast, and the building tottered. More tiles crashed down from the ceiling. Prisoners cried out. Grover covered his head with his hands. His lips moved in a silent prayer. At last the building stabilized.

Steve had paled even further. “That was a bad one.”

Eliza’s pulse throbbed in her throat. She forced herself to remain calm. “Then what happened?”

“After Death Valley? We crossed the Nevada border into Pahrump. It was a war zone. Loyalists hid us in basements when the Bear Republic troops overran the town. Not much food, though.” He let out a bitter laugh. “I thought I was hungry then.”

“When was that?”

“Let’s see. February, I think. We moved out in early March. About three months ago now, I guess. We made contact with Washington, who ordered us back to L.A. Nobody seemed to care anymore that I’d been fired from the agency. I was back in, as far as they were concerned.”

“So you returned to California?”

“Hell no. Fayer wanted to. Chambers and Higgs, no. I was going straight to Blister Creek. Figured I’d get there by Easter.”

“Probably better you didn’t. The drone quarantine was still in force. They would have bombed you off the road.”

“I’d have taken my chances. It would have been better than what came next. We stumbled into a camp outside Vegas just as a cholera epidemic hit. Half a million refugees from the Pacific coast. Most of them died. I caught a nasty bug, had terrible diarrhea for a week—that’s when I got skinny. Not this skinny, but skinny. Higgs died. Essentially crapped himself to death.”

“I’m sorry.”

“The camp got bombed, which finished off what was left. California was winning the war, but then the U.S. pulled out of Iran and shoved a bunch more troops into the conflict. Might have pushed back all the way to the Pacific, but they ran short on fuel. The offensive stalled in Vegas.”

“But how did you get here?”

He started to answer, but another shell detonated in the street with a thunderous boom. Eliza braced herself, but the shaking was minimal this time.

“There were five of us left,” Steve said. “We ran into a company of irregular army troops hauling around artillery with mules. And a wagon filled with leaking, eighty-year-old mustard gas shells. Like something out of the First World War or something. They’d lost several men in an air strike and forcibly drafted us to fill the ranks. At least we got fed.

“That didn’t last long. We met up with another unit run by this insane major with more wagons filled with shells. I was thinking nerve gas or something equally nasty, but no, it was worse than that. Low-yield atomic artillery shells—real Cold War stuff. The kind of thing you launch to keep the Soviet tank army from breaking through. Not the sort of thing you want to blast off and watch detonate.”

“That’s horrible. Did you fire them?”

“We didn’t, no. The colonel was obsessed with security. He interrogated every man in the old company. Threw some kid in front of the firing squad. For what, I never found out. He heard I was from California, and wanted to shoot me too. Didn’t care that I was—or had been—FBI. Fayer and Chambers managed to convince him not to. But he had us in confinement when he took a bullet from a sniper. They let us go, but there was apparently another hard case on the way to take charge of the unit. We made a run for it. So here’s where it gets weird.”

“Weirder than mustard gas and atomic warheads carted around by mules?”

He looked puzzled at this. “That’s a good question. The whole world has gone nuts. A few years ago I was an FBI agent looking into doomsday cults. Then somehow I found myself living in one of those cults. And now doomsday is here. I feel like I’m living in a sci-fi movie. Or maybe it’s a horror movie—I can’t tell. Maybe both.”

“Is the Book of Revelation horror or sci-fi?”

Eliza had raised her voice, and now Grover came edging over, as if he wanted to listen.

Steve continued. “So here we are, traveling across the desert on foot when we find a trailer. Beat up, paint sandblasted off, it looks like it’s been abandoned for years. But maybe we can find a can of beans or a tin of Spam or something. We try the door and find ourselves facing some naked old dude with a shotgun. His skin looks like leather, and he’s got more hair growing out of his ears than on his head. Really crazy guy. I can see guns in his trailer, boxes of ammo. This guy has come here to wait out the end of the world.

“We have a few anxious moments, while we try to back away without shooting the guy or getting shot ourselves. The man says something and we realize he doesn’t know. He has no freaking clue that civilization is coughing up blood. That there’s a war going on. Never heard of the supervolcano. That the crops have failed around the globe. He noticed the long, weird winter, but that was it.”

She marveled at this. “Wow.”

“Oh, it gets better. Turns out he’s a crazy old prepper who bought a trailer and hid it out on empty BLM land with ten thousand pounds of food and fifty thousand rounds of ammunition. He was worried about all sorts of crap: the president being a socialist, UN helicopters, the Chinese harvesting Americans for their organs, whatever. Out of his freaking mind with paranoia. He moved to the desert because he thought the world was going to end. And he was right.”

“That’s crazy.”

“You know how Elder Smoot is always going on about the End of Days? This guy made Smoot look like the voice of reason.” He glanced at Grover. “Sorry, I forgot. That’s your dad.”

“That’s okay,” Grover said. “I know how he gets.”

“How did you get out of there?” Eliza asked.

“I haven’t got to the weird part yet. No, trust me. It’s weirder. This old man—I’ll call him Methuselah, since we never got his real name—gets all excited. He takes us into the canyon behind his trailer, where he shows us a homemade tank hidden beneath tarps. It’s an old Wells Fargo armored car with extra plate-metal armor welded around the sides. Gun ports built into the side and .50-caliber machine guns. Inside, RPGs, boxes of grenades, thousands more rounds of ammo. This thing is out there waiting and all it needs is a tank crew to run it. He’ll give it to us on two conditions. First, we take him with us. Second, he wants to drive through Las Vegas on our way east.”