State of Pursuit Page 3

  “Something scared them off,” I suggest.

  Something caused Omega to retreat, and it wasn’t the National Guard. Many of our own men turned on us. We should still be outnumbered. In fact, we should probably be dead.

  So why did Omega break off the attack?

  “She’s not coming,” Uriah states.

  I blink, following his line of sight. Sophia is standing near a transport truck headed northbound. She is dressed in uniform, her gear on her back and a rifle on one shoulder. Her short, dark hair is hidden beneath a beanie.

  I watch her carefully. Her face has no expression. She looks up, sensing someone watching her, and locks eyes with me. I slowly shake my head.

  Don’t do this, I think. We’ve been through so much together.

  She lifts her chin, pursing her lips. She takes a step onto the bumper below the rear gate of the truck, turns her back, and steps inside. She disappears into the dark maw of the vehicle.

  I exhale sharply.

  Why is she doing this? After everything that’s happened?

  “She’s grieving,” Uriah says, softening. “People in grief do illogical things.”

  I study his profile. His eyes are trained on the road, soft black hair tangled under a National Guard baseball cap. Since when has Uriah become a friend to me?

  “She’s angry,” I reply. “She blames me for losing Alexander and Jeff.”

  “That’s not your problem. That’s hers.”

  “Sophia has been my friend since we were POWs in a labor camp.”

  “People change, and sometimes you don’t know why.” He turns slightly, touching my knee with his hand. “You’re better than her, Cassidy. You’ve got greatness in you.”

  My mouth goes dry.

  “That’s Lieutenant Hart to you,” I murmur.

  “Actually, you’re a Commander now,” he counters.

  I don’t reply. Chris is the one who offers words of wisdom when I am hurting.

  Not Uriah.

  “How far away did Manny say the rendezvous point was?” Uriah asks, clearing his throat. Changing the subject. Removing his hand from my knee.

  “Three hours, tops, in these trucks,” I say. “Manny has friends in the Underground in the Tehachapi Mountains. That’s our contact.”

  “The Colonel’s going to be pissed.”

  “He’ll have to deal with it.”

  Lately, I’ve been surprised at my own behavior. Recently, stuff that comes out of my mouth is tight and cold. Commanding, even. It’s unlike me, and yet…it is, somehow.

  This isn’t who I am. It’s just part of who I am.

  Cassidy Hart, the smart mouthed girl from L.A., died somewhere on the battlefield. At some point, she was replaced by a battle hardened ex-slave laborer and the Lieutenant of a sniper platoon.

  Cassidy Hart has changed.

  “Here we go,” Uriah mutters.

  I lean forward, peering ahead. The convoy is moving forward, a mass of transport trucks and commandeered vehicles filling the freeway. The sky is beautiful. The sun is just peeking over the horizon, filling the hills with a gorgeous gold tone.

  Uriah gently eases the Humvee onto the freeway. The back of our vehicle is stocked with supplies and weaponry – the other members that volunteered for our rescue unit follow in separate trucks.

  The radio on my belt crackles.

  “Yankee, this is Sundog,” Manny says, his voice scratchy. “I’m ready.”

  “Roger that, Sundog,” I reply, hiding a grin. “Happy flying.”

  We rumble down the interstate, headed northbound. The speed at which the convoy travels is no more than fifteen to twenty miles per hour – maddeningly slow. Discreetly, Uriah pulls to the right hand side of the road, waving follow-on vehicles ahead.

  “You better pray they don’t notice this, Commander,” Uriah comments.

  “They won’t,” I say. But I’m not confident. I’m bluffing.

  Uriah pulls off the road completely and the truck sits there, idling. The convoy continues to pass us by, a roaring collection of engines and troop transports. The truck that Sophia is in lumbers past. A sick, devastated feeling washes over me.

  Sophia is angry at the world, my conscious tells me. Her decisions are her own, and you can’t waste time worrying about her. Your job is to keep your team safe and to rescue Chris. Focus on the objective, Cassidy!

  I shake myself, but the sting of Sophia’s betrayal is still there.

  After everything that’s happened in the last week, this is the icing on the cake. I can’t deal with it. I don’t have the time or energy. So I take my damaged emotions, put them in a box, and throw the box out the figurative window.

  It’s game time, and nothing will defeat me.

  I twist around in my seat, keeping an eye on the convoy. The staging area by the rest stop is slowly emptying of all of its vehicles. The Blackhawk helicopters in the parking lot growl to life, slicing the air with their incredible blades. They rise into the sky, hulking masses that will defend the convoy from the air.

  “I almost wish we were going back to Sector 20,” Uriah sighs. “At least we’d have some time to recover from all of this.”

  I keep my mouth shut.

  I would love to return to Sector 20, but that’s not an option. Not right now.

  It takes a long time for the last of the convoy to finally fade into the distance. We are four vehicles idling on the side of the road. Two transport trucks and two Humvees. Our rescue unit – the unit that’s going to take on the entire Omega contingent.

  “Okay, boys,” I say into my radio, “Let’s roll.”

  Uriah steps on the gas, steers the Humvee into a tight U-turn, and just like that, we are heading south.

  “Will Rivera come after us when they realize we’re gone?” Uriah asks.

  “No,” I say. “It’s not worth it to him.”

  I reach up and touch the gold shield necklace on my chest. A gift from Chris. It seems like he gave it to me such a long time ago, but in actuality, it hasn’t even been one year yet.

  Things change so quickly.

  We drive south on the interstate until we hit the cratered remains of the road destroyed during the fighting. The Battle of the Grapevine is what the men are calling it. Landmines and rockets ripped apart most of the concrete, and what the bombs didn’t get, Omega’s Air Force nailed on their strafing runs.

  “There are still some landmines planted out here,” I warn Uriah. “This is where we’ll be taking the old roads.”

  “How old, exactly?”

  “Don’t worry, I know where I’m going.” I unfold a map from my bag. It’s a military map, full of exact coordinates, latitudes and longitudes. But what we will be using are the back roads, those that will take us to Highway 138. I know from intelligence reports that Omega rarely uses anything but the major interstates like I-5 or Highway 99. Highway 138 will be a safe way to get us where we are going: Lancaster, California.

  “I’ll already be there before your trucks have made a U-turn,” Manny joked earlier.

  “You’d better be,” I replied. “Because I don’t know who these people are.”

  “Relax, my girl. Manny’s got it all under control. They’re old friends of mine.”

  “How old? And exactly what do you mean by friends?”

  Manny wiggled his eyebrows, then.

  “I mean they’re not my enemies, and for the moment that’s good enough for me.” He paused. “Are you doing all right, though?”

  I shrugged.

  “Chris is gone, Jeff is dead, Alexander is MIA,” I said, “And now I’m the Commander of a suicide mission going to Los Angeles. Everything’s great.”

  Manny tapped my cheek with one of his long, bony fingers.

  “You can do it,” he told me cheerfully.

  I’m not sure what he meant by that, but thinking back on the conversation gives me some peace of mind. Manny believes in me – and even if he is slightly eccentric, he’s proven himself to be a goo
d soldier and an even better friend.

  I trust him.

  Sophia, on the other hand…

  “This is it,” I say, pointing to an off ramp. The mountains rise high into the air, the peaks dusted with snow. Mud and puddles mar the road. Tire tracks zigzag along the potholed highway, an indication of Omega’s recent presence.

  And on the side of the hills, there is nothing but charred, ashy soot from the battle fires.

  “It’ll grow back,” I whisper.

  Uriah gives me a weird look. I ignore it.

  It was my idea to start a fire to push Omega back. This is the consequence.

  I have always loved the beauty of these mountains, and seeing so much of it burned is painful.

  Everywhere I go, Omega has caused destruction.

  The Tehachapi Mountains are unique. They stretch for about forty miles in the southern quarter of California. There are few pine trees or cedars here. It is mostly grassy hills and land best used for grazing cattle. The terrain is steep. In a few places, trees and shrubbery are thick.

  I keep my eye on the three vehicles behind us.

  It’s an hour drive from the bottom of the Grapevine to the rendezvous point, but it will take us longer because we are traveling slower. We have to keep an eye out for Omega scouts or rogue militia forces. The dangers of traveling without the rest of our convoy are immense. We are on our own.

  We are deserters.

  For the time being, at least.

  Thinking about what we’ve done brings a sour taste to my mouth. I feel guilty for leaving the National Guard behind, but in my heart I know that this is the right thing to do. It’s not just Chris we’ll be rescuing if we’re successful, anyway. It will be other militia officers that have been captured, too.

  “Hey, are you seeing this?” Uriah asks.

  I look up from my map.

  “Wow.”

  The sun is hitting the snow-lined peaks just right, creating a prism of light. It’s almost heavenly. I admire it for a long time before saying,

  “Not everything can be destroyed by Omega.”

  Uriah nods.

  We’re on a little known back road that winds through the mountains. We’re out in the open, exposed. It makes me nervous. The mountains rise up on each side of us as we roll into a small grazing valley. Broken cattle fences line the side of the road. Two ranch houses stand in the distance. It’s hard to tell, but it looks like they’ve been burned from the inside out.

  An accident? Probably not.

  “I don’t know Manny as well as you do,” Uriah says quietly. “I hope you trust him enough to believe in his friends.”

  “Manny is a good soldier,” I reply simply. “He knows what he’s doing.”

  Most of the time.

  Uriah doesn’t look too sure. It doesn’t make me any more confident about my decision.

  Why did they have to vote me Commander? I think angrily. I don’t want to be in charge. I just want to rescue Chris.

  I’m not a leader. I’m not.

  After forty-five minutes of driving, the mountains loom closer, crowding the road. The trees are thicker here.

  “We’re almost there,” I say. I look at the map. “There should be some kind of a basin coming up. It looks like a lake.”

  “You mean that?” Uriah tips his head.

  I stare at a huge hole in the ground. There is no water left. Only mud and sludge, an aftereffect of the heavy rain.

  “Yeah, that,” I reply.

  I scan the landscape. The road begins to climb upward, winding around the base of a huge mountain. We grind onto a gravel access road for a good half hour. I keep my eyes trained on the road, trying to avoid thoughts of ambush.

  The pain of being separated from Chris is physical. Like a knife in the chest.

  Please, God, I pray. Let him be alive.

  “Whoa,” Uriah says.

  We come to a straightaway in the road. It flattens suddenly and we’re pulling into a wide-open space, surrounded on all sides by thick trees and foliage. At the end of the road is a ranch house; similar to the ones I’ve seen on the way here. The house is old and big. Several outbuildings sit nearby We come to metal pole gate, topped with coils of wicked barbed wire. There are sand-bagged fortifications to our right and left. Four German Shepherds run the perimeter of the inside of the fence, barking and growling viciously.

  A metal sign on the gate reads:

  PRIVATE PROPERTY:

  TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT.

  Uriah kills the engine. The other trucks follow our lead. I open the passenger door, step outside, and breathe in the crisp mountain air. I grab my rifle and sling it over my shoulder, keeping it close.

  “This isn’t what I had in mind,” Andrew says.

  He files out of the back of one of the transport trucks, his gear on his back.

  “What were you picturing?” Vera snaps, slamming the door to her Humvee. “The freaking Taj Mahal?”

  I give her a look.

  She rolls her eyes, twisting her hair into a tight ponytail. I’m surprised she doesn’t rip it out. But her eyes are watchful, fierce.

  “Where’s Manny?” Derek asks.

  “He’s here,” I assure him.

  “Where do we go in?” Vera says. “How do we know this place is safe?”

  “Manny should be-” I begin, but I stop. “We’re being watched.”

  “Obviously,” Vera replies. “We’re surrounded.”

  Well, duh. My men watch the sides of the road carefully. Several armed guards emerge from the foliage, well camouflaged and silent. They wear no uniforms. In fact, they are dressed as civilians. But they are armed, and that is enough.

  “National Guard,” I say. “I’m Yankee One. We’re with Manny.”

  “Yes, I know.” A slender, almost-invisible figure emerges from the woods. It’s a woman. She’s tall, white-haired. A green shirt is tucked into her combat pants. A pattern of soft wrinkles frames her pretty face.

  A German Shepherd darts out of the bushes and streaks toward me.

  I instinctively take a defensive stance and bring my rifle up, ready to smash the stock of the weapon into the dog’s face when it bites. And I realize something in that moment: I’m not afraid of the dog. I’m not afraid of being bitten.

  I’m just reacting to a threat like a robot.

  I really have changed.

  “Cinco, no!” the woman says.

  She rushes forward. The dog hesitates when it hears her command, and it pulls back, but it continues to growl, circling me. The woman grabs the dog by the collar, dragging it backward as much as she can manage, sternly telling it to stand down.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, offering a halfhearted grin. “Cinco’s just doing her job.”

  “I can respect that,” I remark.

  “Welcome to Safe Zone One,” the woman keeps a hand on Cinco’s collar. The dog is still growling menacingly. “Is this it?”

  “Is what it?” Vera snaps.

  “Is this your entire rescue unit?”

  “Yeah.” The small size of the unit must be disappointing. “We pack a mean punch.”

  Arlene’s eyes soften a bit.

  “I believe you,” she answers.

  “We don’t have a lot of time,” I say. “We need to get moving as soon as possible. Do you have everything we need?”

  “I will.” She looks over her shoulder, whistling shrilly.

  As I turn and open the lead Humvee’s back door, Manny comes out of the woods. His flight cap is stuffed into the pocket of his duster. He’s flushed. It looks like he’s been running.

  “Manny?” I say. “Are you okay?”

  “Never been better,” he replies, bending down. Scratching Cinco behind the ears. “I see you made it in one piece. That’s good news.”

  “You could say that,” Vera remarks.

  “It wasn’t as bad as we thought it’d be,” I shrug.

  He bats the dog’s tail away.

  “I told you it
was purely elementary, didn’t I?”

  “Let’s go inside,” I say, reminding myself that I’m in charge, and therefore I should lead the way. “Standing around in the open isn’t wise.”

  The hills could have eyes other than our own.

  “Good call,” Andrew murmurs.

  Vera gives him a condescending look as she passes him.

  Why is she even here? I wonder. It’s certainly not because she’s my biggest fan.

  I lead the platoon – about twenty-five people in all – to the front of the gate. The woman falls into step beside me, Manny on her left. The dog is silent. I keep my eye on it, regardless.

  “I’m Arlene, by the way,” the woman says. “Codename Shepherd One on the radio.”

  Ironic.

  “You’ve got a reputation, Cassidy,” she continues

  “So I’ve been told,” I answer.

  She unlocks the gate, shouting at the powerful guard dogs on the other side, commanding them to be silent. They cease most of the barking and growling, prowling around the sides of the fence. They know their master, and they have been trained to respond well.

  Manny says something to Arlene in a low voice.

  She playfully slaps his shoulder. He laughs good-naturedly.

  Hmm.

  The front walkway to the ranch house is wide, packed tight with gravel, the lawn perfectly manicured. The house itself is three stories, painted in muted earth tones, blending in with the terrain. A sprawling bunkhouse sits on the right hand side of the property, and in the back, there are stables and corrals.

  “Nice place,” Vera comments.

  “Yes,” Arlene replies. “Been in the family for generations.”

  We reach the front door. It’s huge, oak and bracketed with black iron hinges. Arlene pushes it open and we step inside. I take a deep breath, marveling at the 19th century design. Large windows in the second floor shed natural light into the room. It smells like aged leather and dusty books. And food! Something is cooking, and the scent is mouthwatering.

  How long has it been since I’ve been inside a house?

  “Welcome to the Double Y Ranch,” Arlene announces, standing at the end of the entryway. “We’re a way-station for traveling soldiers and a proud thorn in the side of Omega. What you see and hear in this place is confidential. We are a low-profile operation, and I expect you to all to treat this location accordingly.”