2020: Emergency Exit Page 13

  Hayley walked away with Emily while the rest of us talked, the first time anyone had been alone with Emily without Tara around. When Tara, who had been preoccupied with the photos, noticed Emily was gone, sudden panic flashed across her face. She ran out of the barn, and Danny and I followed her. “Emily!” Tara called out.

  “I’m here, Mama,” came the cheery reply from the side of the house.

  As we jogged towards the house, Hayley and Emily came around the corner. “I was showing her the goats, Mama,” Emily said with a smile. “They’re still alive!” Clearly the chemicals hadn’t reached this area.

  “It’s okay, honey,” Tara replied, pulling Emily to her, as we looked at Hayley, who wasn’t smiling. She seemed to be glaring at Tara, who flushed a dark shade of red.

  I started to ask about the glare. “Hayley, wha—”

  “What’s going on?” Danny cut me off.

  “Dad,” Hayley addressed me. “Would you take Emily back to the barn?”

  “What? Why?” I replied.

  Danny grabbed my arm. “Dad,” he said calmly but with a serious tone.

  Got it. “Okay.” Looking at both of them and then Tara, who didn’t return my glance, I led Emily back towards the barn. When I peeked back, the three of them were gone, apparently into the house. What in the world was going on?

  --------------------

  Hayley brushed past Tara into the house, searching until she found Tara’s bedroom. Tara followed but didn’t object. “What’s going on, Hayley?” Danny asked, watching her go through the closets and drawers.

  “Do you want to tell him, or should I?” Hayley replied with another cold look at Tara.

  Tara shrugged, tears beginning to form in her eyes. “You don’t understand—”

  “Emily has never met her dad,” Hayley cut her off, standing still for a minute. “I asked her to tell me a little bit about him, and she said she’d never met him. Never!”

  Danny looked back and forth between Hayley and Tara and tried to catch Tara’s eyes. “In eleven years?” Danny asked in disbelief. “But you said he was in the—”

  “I was raped,” Tara interrupted quietly, silencing Danny and Hayley immediately. “Twelve years ago,” she continued. “I was at a party my senior year at Texas A&M. Someone put something in my drink, took me to a room, and raped me.” There was bitterness and hurt in her voice now, and Hayley’s angry façade was evaporating. “I’ve never had the heart to tell my daughter where she came from. Her dad’s not a soldier. I don’t even know who her dad is. I never even reported the rape—and yes, I know I should have. Before you say anything else, or start judging me for anything else, let me try to explain.” She looked at both of them and neither objected. “The first eight years or so it was simple enough to keep Emily in the dark. She didn’t really ask any questions, never had any friends over—didn’t really even have any friends. But around nine or ten, yeah, she started to ask questions. Other people were asking her questions. I could have—should have—told her then, but…I don’t know…”

  “You couldn’t,” Danny said it for her. Tara was quiet for a moment. “I get it,” he continued. “But she honestly still believes he’s a soldier or something—that he’s just never been able to come home. Wouldn’t it be—”

  “I know, I know,” Tara jumped back in. “It sounds stupid. What kind of child would be that naïve, right? A very sheltered one…obviously. So maybe what kind of parent would do that to their kid—Is that what you’re thinking?” She didn’t let anyone answer. “We all played our part…Mom homeschooled her until she got sick and she and Dad moved up to Medora. Then I took over. I knew I couldn’t keep this up forever, but who wants to tell a little girl her father’s never coming home—even if you think she would’ve known that long before now.” Tara was sobbing now, but she kept going. “I mean look around you—look at the world I built for her. It’s all make-believe. These photos, they’re of someone I’ve never met, all photoshopped with me. Even the wedding pictures. I’m not married. Never have been. Dad and I—we decided it would be best to tell Emily her dad was in the military. That way, when she was old enough to take it, we could tell her he’d died. She could be proud of her father then, and no one would think less of her. I never wanted her to be ashamed of me, and I definitely never wanted her to be ashamed of herself. What was I supposed to do?”

  Hayley was kicking herself now for her earlier attitude. She approached Tara, but Tara backed away, resisting her touch. “Tara, I’m sorry,” Hayley whispered. “We didn’t know any…”

  Danny was taking it all in. Now he understood. “So why come back down here? Why not tell her right after the attacks and get it all over with then?” he asked.

  Tara gave a weak half-smile. “That would have made sense—I know—but truthfully we didn’t even know the attacks were real until you guys came to town. I honestly didn’t want to come back down here. I mean, when we left to go visit Mom for the last time Emily had told me she hoped her dad would be here when she got back. She said the same thing to Mom and Dad when we were up there. I was trying to avoid all of it. I guess I’d hoped some miracle solution would pop up, or that my dad would rescue me again and somehow make it all make sense to Emily.”

  Hayley had approached her again and this time Tara let Hayley hug her. “Tara, I feel terrible. You could have just told us.”

  Tara laughed. “If it were only that easy. I’ve never told anyone. I don’t have any idea how I would have brought it up. To you there may have been a million opportunities you could think of along the way. To me, there just never was a good one. I just didn’t want to do the explaining to Emily on my own, and didn’t want all you guys to be here when she found out he wasn’t here. I realize it doesn’t make any sense to you, but it is what it is. I’m nowhere near perfect…I’m sorry.”

  Hayley was hugging Tara now, and Tara wasn’t resisting. “My dad’s plan wasn’t ever for me to come back here as much as it was to take Emily away with me, with you guys, and have some kind of chance of living. He couldn’t bear to watch his daughter or granddaughter die, and he knew it was only a matter of time up there. And you heard him, Mom was way too sick to travel. She wasn’t going to make it more than a few more weeks, or months. Dad didn’t want Emily to watch her die like that either.” Tara sat down on the bed.

  “It makes sense, Tara,” Danny said. “All of it. Honestly, I don’t know how I would have told anyone either.”

  Tara nodded. “I really didn’t want to cause any problems for anyone. I’m sorry it’s become such a mess. And I’m sorry for however I’ve misled or angered either, or any of you, in any way…”

  Danny waved her apology off. “You don’t need to apologize to us, or to anyone. I’m glad you told us though…this did answer a few questions. But if you’re going to continue on with us, you do have to trust me, trust us, and we have to be able to trust you.” Tara nodded and opened her mouth to speak, but Danny continued before she could. “And you definitely have to tell Emily something now about where her Dad might be, whatever you decide to say. We’ll all help you with it however we can, but we have to move on together with the truth.” He tilted his head to look her in the eyes and restated the last two words. “The truth.”

  She smiled. “Understood,” she exhaled. “Danny…”

  “Ma’am?” he turned back.

  “Please don’t ever call me that again, and please don’t tell anyone else about the...” Tara paused.

  “He wouldn’t,” Hayley assured her.

  “I won’t,” he affirmed.

  Hayley hugged Tara again, and as Danny walked out of the room he heard Tara ask Hayley if she’d go with her to talk to Emily now. Danny smiled. That was one less thing on his mind now.

  THIRTY: (Eddie) “Cave Men”

  While mapping out the area between Keystone and Custer, Captain Eddie found the perfect place to hide for the day. Thirteen miles west of Custer was Jewel Cave National Monument. The legend on his South Da
kota map claimed it was the second largest cave system in the world. It was no doubt a sufficient short-term hideout option. Then again, he couldn’t ignore the possibility others might already be there. Americans. Maybe even “his lions.”

  It was slightly after 3 p.m. when Eddie, Lazzo, and their fifty-eight men arrived at Jewel Cave. Several burnt vehicles in the parking lot indicated Qi Jia troops or drones had already been here at some point. Eddie’s men found several dozen bodies, but no signs of life above ground. They covered up their trucks and jeeps with tarps and dug out the main cave entrance. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he called into the cold darkness, and laughed. The echo gave him chills.

  He was almost disappointed their entrance wasn’t met with a response—gunfire or any form of human resistance. There didn’t seem to be anyone here. It sure would have been an easy place to end their pursuit with a few well-placed explosions. Oh well. He stationed several men near the road with radar equipment to monitor activity in both directions. Eddie and the rest of his soldiers spread out on a level plateau below ground and waited out the day.

  Sunset was around 6 p.m. If the other companies had stuck to their plan, they’d be in Hot Springs by now, so Eddie figured it would be safe to move his troops to Custer. They had uncovered the trucks, loaded up, and begun their drive in when their radar screen flashed. Eddie halted the company and backed them up a couple hundred yards. Was it possible the other companies were still in Custer? That didn’t seem likely. Or could they have left some men behind to guard the town? That was more likely but still strange. Custer was a long ways north of Hot Springs to leave men behind. Eddie expected the Americans would likely come this way, as it was the fastest way out of the area, but he couldn’t ignore the one other southern route that would also allow them to pass without going through Hot Springs. He had to make the call. Right now. Every minute he spent strategizing was setting them back.

  They had to move closer and find out what was going on in Custer. He sent one jeep forward to scout. They made it to within five miles of Custer with no radar noise appearing in town. Frustrated at what might have caused the earlier flash, Eddie ordered the rest of his troops to move forward. Seconds later he put the pieces together when the scout vehicle called back in noting “four large red dots heading south on 385” towards the other exit out of the Black Hills. That report seemed to confirm Eddie’s hopes and his fears. Four dots could very well be four American vehicles heading away from Custer and Hot Springs. If indeed it was, they were no more than twenty miles ahead. But Eddie would have to lead his men pretty close to the other companies to pursue them.

  THIRTY-ONE: (Ryan) “Hot Pursuit”

  As darkness approached on the farm Danny gathered everyone together. “Time to go again, guys.” He looked around. “Everyone good?”

  By now we figured the large mass of troops we’d followed south had gone through Custer and moved on. We were tempted to stay at the farm another day, but we also knew if we didn’t make it to Colorado, and specifically Estes Park, before snow closed up the mountains, we’d be stuck out in the open. Generally that occurred the last week of October or first week of November—in other words, some time in the next two weeks. This year there wouldn’t be snowplows or road crews to open it back up. We would either make it the first try, or we wouldn’t make it at all.

  It was approximately 330 miles to Estes Park from the farm, close as we could tell by the atlas. Normally that would take about five and a half hours. We knew we’d be pushing it to arrive by sunrise, ten or eleven hours from now, given the caution we’d have to take and detours we’d have to make around Cheyenne, Fort Collins and Loveland.

  We pulled into Custer and, as expected, the town was empty. The plan was to go further south on 89, instead of taking Highway 16 straight west. We stopped at a gas station west of town to top off the trucks and fill four extra ten-gallon containers with gas. We were leaving the station when the radar flashed at us. Unlike last time though, this time we saw the dots, a bunch of them, straight west of us on Highway 16. Then they disappeared. We had to be right on the edge of their range.

  We stopped for a moment to see if they were coming towards us, but a few minutes later they still hadn’t reappeared. We continued on and made it about five more miles before the screen flashed again, but this time there was only one dot. With the dial cranked down a notch, to what we now knew was nine miles, the dot was still on the screen. One more notch and it disappeared. That dot was between eight and nine miles away and moving towards Custer north of us. Making valuable use of middle school geometry, A2 + B2 = C2, we determined the other vehicle was about fourteen miles away from us by road. We knew we’d seen multiple dots a few minutes ago. We weren’t waiting around to see if they also reappeared.

  According to our map, we would soon be coming up on the intersection of 89 and 18, approximately six miles from Hot Springs. If soldiers were still there, we’d be cutting pretty close to them, and with no other viable side roads we’d likely draw their undivided interest.

  As we passed into radar range of Hot Springs, we picked up four dots on the screen, scattered around the town. We were within their range and radar visibility for about five miles, and not one of them headed our direction. We quickly moved on south and west into Wyoming, hopeful we were finally alone for a while.

  THIRTY-TWO: (Eddie) “Divine Intervention”

  But one of the jeeps did notice the Americans passing and radioed it over to the officers of the two companies camped southeast of Hot Springs at the Angostura Reservoir. The officers there told them not to worry about it, that there was other troop movement in the area. The four men in the jeep were okay with letting those four dots go, until they saw another fourteen dots on the radar screen coming down that same road. That was a lot of troop movement, far more than there should be in that direction. They didn’t call it in this time, for fear of being reprimanded, but decided to go check it out on their own. They got to the intersection behind Eddie’s scout jeep and just before the next thirteen vehicles of the caravan.

  Eddie had seen the single dot moving their way from town, and he was weighing what story he should give whoever it was coming to meet them. As Eddie’s jeep neared the intersection, he saw a single military jeep pulling up to cut them off. He slowed the caravan down, and four Middle Eastern men hopped out of their jeep and walked up to his. Here goes.

  “What you is be doing here?” one of the men asked him.

  And he thought his English was bad. “Trying to catch my men. You see them pass?”

  The man ignored his question. “Where you all be go to?”

  “Where we going?” Eddie asked, and noted a slight nod back. “Montana,” he stated.

  “You come to from the Montana?” the man asked.

  “We come from Montana?” Eddie asked again. The guy’s erratic speech was pissing him off. “Yes.”

  “Ah,” the man said, glancing up and down the line. “Okay.”

  He turned around to walk away, directing the others to follow him. Eddie rolled his eyes. So much for plan A. The soldier was going to call them in and they’d be forced to go with them to talk to the other officers. Not only would that give the Americans an insurmountable lead, but Eddie and his men would potentially be in some pretty hot water. Eddie raised his pistol and shot two of them in the back of the head. Before the other two could get their guns up, his men took them out. He couldn’t leave them there, so he shouted, “Throw them in a truck. Let’s go!”

  His men loaded the four bodies in the back of one of the trucks. Another two of his guys hopped in the other jeep. They were no more than ten miles down the road when the radio on the new jeep crackled, and a voice spoke, “Why is your truck not on radar? Where you go?” The two men in the jeep looked at each other but didn’t respond. They had been instructed to disregard all communication. “Hello! I ask. Why is your truck not on the radar?” Again they shared a look but kept going.

  On the other end of th
e radio, back at the reservoir, the officers were gathered around, trying to get a response from the jeep they’d connected with earlier. One of the officers had watched as they’d driven off the radar grid, even after being told to ignore the passing vehicles. He had let it go at the time, curious about what they’d report back.

  But now it had been almost half an hour since the jeep had disappeared, and the lack of response was even more troubling. They radioed another jeep in town and asked if they’d seen anything unusual on their radar. One of the men had noticed a jeep leaving town towards a long line of fourteen dots. He communicated he’d seen the one dot stop, and all but one of the other dots do the same. Then after a few minutes all the dots moved on together.

  The senior ranking officer there was a major, and he called the nearest base with a drone in Rapid City. He reported his concerns about a potential American caravan passing through towards Wyoming and that he’d lost contact with some of his men who had intercepted it.

  The base commander told him the drones were unfortunately down in Denver for the night. However, he did have two Blackhawk helicopters he could send. The major asked him to send two squads of men out in the Blackhawks southwest of Custer towards Cheyenne, Wyoming and told him to be on the lookout for approximately fifteen vehicles traveling in a group. The base commander asked what he should do if they found them, and he was told to stop them. If they fought back, kill them. The major told the base commander he was on his way with another ninety troops, and he would meet the helicopters wherever they found and stopped the caravan. The base commander agreed, and the helicopters were sent out with two pilots and twenty-four soldiers.

  When the driver at the tail end of the caravan spotted the low-flying lights closing in on them, he radioed the captain. They had just turned south onto Highway 85, and Eddie could see the lights approaching out his window as well. Those aren’t drones at night. As they flew overhead and circled, Eddie recognized them as helicopters, American helicopters even. He watched them set down about a mile ahead of them, and he ordered his men to a full stop. This wasn’t good.