2020: Emergency Exit Read online

  He loved college. Even without alcohol, as a devout Muslim, they were still the best years of his life. He immersed himself in American history, geography, government, culture and military studies at the University of Tripoli. His American knowledge and brilliant strategic mind helped him climb the military intelligence ladder quickly and, perhaps more importantly, kept him off the battlefield. He didn’t have to fight. He didn’t have to kill.

  He met his wife his last year at the university, married her that summer, and was granted an officer post in the village of Marat, an hour south of Tripoli, a month later. Eddie was lauded for his character and leadership skills. A well-educated peacekeeper and difference maker respected by his military peers, Eddie, by the age of twenty-five, was rapidly promoted all the way to captain, the highest available rank for a refugee.

  His brother Lazzo had followed him into the military and was promoted behind him up to first lieutenant. Both of them worked in military intelligence, and that was Eddie’s entire focus. Lazzo, on the other hand, was also trained as a pilot. He loved to fly, and he could expertly pilot any kind of aircraft.

  In September of 2020, Eddie received a visit from Libya’s commander in chief. Curious as to the purpose for the visit and the many personal questions he was asked, he was told only the Libyan chief was searching for his country’s best men. Accordingly, if the commander thought highly enough of him, Eddie should expect to receive a call soon with a special opportunity. A little more than a week later, Eddie and his company were offered an assignment in Mexico for what he was told was a “training exercise.” Eager to make a difference out in the world and to prove his worthiness to his commander in chief, he and Lazzo reported for duty without objection. Eddie left behind his wife and three daughters, and Lazzo left his new and pregnant wife.

  As their training exercise neared its conclusion, a week before they were due to return to Libya, their commander called Eddie and all the other company leaders into the main building. He informed them the United States had attacked their homes, unleashed nuclear bombs on all of Libya and many other countries, and wiped out the entire population. No one back home had survived. Officers had been trying to reach family for days, but with no success. There was no home left to return to. They were on their own here. China, Russia, and several other countries had reportedly retaliated with chemical warfare and had managed to wipe out most of the United States. In shock, Eddie listened as he was filled in on the details by his commanding officer. He was given a phone and told to try to reach his family. Everywhere he called he received nothing but static. They were all dead. It was true. There was nothing they could do. How could America have done this? How could America have done this to HIM?

  Furious rage quickly replaced his sadness. He wanted to know what he and his men could do. His commander told him, “Plans have changed.” This was no longer a training exercise. The remaining government leaders from the former superpowers had joined together into one unified force called Qi Jia, and they would be making a move on the former American capitol. The commanders assured each of the officers their orders would arrive soon, and they likely would be sent in to finish the job. Libya’s commander wanted to know if he could count on Eddie to make America pay for its sins. With resolution fueled by personal tragedy, a fury for war replaced a decade and a half of peace in an instant. Eddie wanted blood. Hell yes they could count on him!

  When the orders came, he didn’t question the incredible size of the already mobilized force. It didn’t occur to him to consider how a million military and mercenary men had been pulled together so quickly and orchestrated into an even more unified dispersal across the former United States. He fell hook, line, and sinker for his commander’s version of the attacks, and his family’s death secured his unquestionable allegiance to the fight.

  His papers had his company going to a place called Fargo. Eddie had seen a movie by that name at the university, but hadn’t been able to understand its regional dialect. He shouldn’t have to worry about that now; there wasn’t supposed to be anyone still alive up there. He was assigned leadership to a patrol of eighty men, a small faction of the five thousand soldiers being sent to Fargo, North Dakota. Their orders: “Kill everyone not wearing a Qi Jia uniform.” Simple enough.

  On arrival at the Fargo Air National Guard Base, he and fifty other company leaders assembled in the airport hanger. Eddie’s company and four others would head north immediately to a town called Grand Forks. They were to burn every grocery, clothing, and supply store in the city, the idea being to limit the strength of resistance, and life expectancy, of any survivors. They were then to head west in a straight line towards Montana burning every farm and small town to the ground, before eventually circling back to Fargo. They could leave the roads alone. Leave the bodies. Cleanup crews would follow and take care of them, and as evidenced by the hundreds scattered about the base, there would be millions of bodies to get rid of. There were no inconsistencies in the commander’s plan to make Eddie take pause. Now, fueled by vengeance, he was a blindly motivated man.

  NINE: (Ryan) “On The Road Again”

  Monday, October 19, 2020.

  North Dakota.

  We arrived in Grand Forks minutes after 2 a.m. Once the rain stopped the full moon emerged, which helped the travel, but driving through the dark with no headlights still wasn’t easy. The tension hadn’t subsided in the least, and we were all expecting to be pulled over at gunpoint any minute, so we spoke very little.

  Passing through the small town of Fisher, a few miles outside Grand Forks, we came upon a larger replica of what we’d found in Ely. The smell seemed even stronger here, even with the air on and windows up. Exponentially more cars littered the highways and ditches, occupants still inside. Gaping holes showed in the center dividers and the guardrails on bridges, where some cars were still hanging and others had plunged through. Abundantly more dead animals again covered the roads. This toxin, whatever it was, had spared no creature. There didn’t appear to be any immune. Survival was lucky. Pure luck. I just couldn’t get over that.

  Exiting off Highway 2 onto Demers Avenue, we saw even more bodies in parked cars, more on the sidewalks, and more on the lawns. We all wanted to look away, but to where? We sought out any visible signs of life, helplessly wishing we could help someone, somehow, in some way. But we couldn’t. It was the same sickening, horrific, scene wherever we looked.

  Businesses had been rendered into the ultimate situational ironies. There was a State Farm agency, with no one there, a Motel 6 with no lights on, and a Batteries Plus store, completely dead. The movie theater across the street from Cabela’s was playing Terminator 6. Even Arnold wasn’t coming back from this. At any other point in time these truths would have been quite funny. Tonight they were sobering doses of reality. This is how it is. Everywhere. Life will never again be how it was before.

  We still hadn’t encountered any signs of enemy presence. There were no other vehicles, no lights, no aircraft or motor sounds. Yet, to be certain no one was at Cabela’s, we looped all the way around the building before parking the three trucks across the street in an auto repair shop parking lot. Cameron and Danny pulled on their covert, black, Special Ops uniforms. The suits were high-tech, lined with a heat-absorbent, waterproof, Kevlar reinforced fabric and equipped with miniature battery-powered vents (under the arms, at the waist, at the ankles, and at the neck) to balance their body temperature inside the suit with the air outside. They called them “ghost suits,” and those two would be invisible on any THIRST system. The Navy SEALs used these uniforms in every stealth operation, allowing them to breach buildings and beaches almost invisibly—like ghosts. On the open market they would be $80,000 suits, but they weren’t available on the market, which meant two was all we had.

  Hayley and I didn’t have that same stealth security, but we crossed the street with Cameron and Danny, and crept along the edge of the building to the front door. The others stayed with the trucks for now. Danny picked t
he lock in seconds, something I normally would have questioned, but decided to let go for the time being. Had to be something he picked up in the military. He raised the iron gates enough to access the doors and opened those enough so he could slide in and disarm the security system. Another useful trick that took him only seconds. He then came back and opened the glass doors so we could all slide in. Danny lowered and relocked the iron gate, and we made our way together through the darkened store. We found the section with the night vision gear, and Danny set each of us up with a functional set. He loaded up on batteries and other related accessories and grabbed an additional set for everyone waiting with the trucks. Then we headed to the back door to let them in.

  Once we were all inside, Danny split our survival shopping spree list into eight sections, each with ten to twenty items. I stayed with him and Cameron. We collected equipment from high-tech infrared deflecting blankets and tents to similar stealth clothing, jackets, gloves, hats, boots, and sleeping bags. Danny knew what kinds of guns we needed, so he went to gather those. He and Cameron had their Special Ops Remington R11s slung over their shoulders and Springfield XDM12s holstered. They also had their high-powered, .50 caliber, Barrett M82 sniper rifles out in the truck.

  Cabela’s didn’t stock those military grade weapons, but Danny’s search turned up four Remington 700s, four M40A8s, two Colt M4s, four Beretta handguns and four Springfield XDM8s. We gathered scopes, ammo, and silencers for the weapons, fishing gear, knives, propane grills and tanks, and pre-packaged military food packets. Hayley picked up four more bows, beyond the four she’d packed, and a hundred of the best arrows. The others loaded up on additional food, two-way radios, bottled water, hunting traps, motion cameras, emergency lights, rope, wire, first aid kits, Tasers, backpacks, face paint, and a couple of generators. We hauled the supplies out to the trucks, divided everything equally among the three vehicles in case we happened to lose one, and then moved them down the street a few more blocks. Danny and Dad wrapped the hoods with heat-trapping tarps, to mask the engine temperatures, and we were ready to get a little rest.

  We walked back to the store, climbed the stairs behind the giant waterfall and fish tank, and crawled exhausted into our sleeping bags. It didn’t take long, despite our worries, for us to fall asleep, but the break was short-lived. I was jolted awake, with Danny’s hand over my mouth, two hours later. He held a finger to his lips, handed me night-vision goggles, and pointed towards the front door. Someone’s here. He and Cameron woke everyone else up quietly and I crawled forward with the two of them to the railing, expecting the worst.

  Instead we watched in stunned curiosity as four large white men in overalls staggered through the front of the dark store with as much grace as a grizzly bear in a butcher shop. Through our night vision gear and scopes we could tell they were each armed with hunting rifles or shotguns and were headed directly for the gun section of the store. They began collecting more weapons and didn’t seem to have any idea we were here. We could hear them talking now. More Americans? They moved about with ease and seemed to know the layout of the store. Clearly they’d shopped here before. There were doomsday preppers throughout the country. Who knew how many of them had actually survived? Either these guys fit that bill, or they were simply as lucky as we were to have somehow been beyond the chemical impact radius during the attack. It didn’t matter. They weren’t doing anything to mask their activities or heat signatures, and if anyone else had followed them here we all could be in danger. As thrilled as we were to have run into more survivors, we decided we were safest staying hidden. Danny crept down the stairs to the back door and peeked out enough to see two trucks parked in back, motors running, and both with at least one passenger behind the wheel. He came back and reported to us. This was not good. They were being far too careless.

  Cameron moved the group into two military-grade tents back in the corner. U.S. forces used these tents to avoid heat signature and overhead radar detection. Danny had brought one up to the cabin last fall, and we felt invisible while hunting in them. Animals would come right up to the tent without knowing we were there. It was almost an unfair advantage. As if all the other tech toys we use aren’t. If it worked on animals and their senses, it probably worked just as well on humans. We were fortunate Cabela’s had a few. It was a fair advantage now.

  Danny signaled Cameron to follow him back to the glass wall of the aquarium. As they reached the wall and relocated the four men, one of them shouted, “Mark, we’ve gotta go. Now, man!” We heard them crash through the store towards the back door and open it. Seconds later, the back of the store was rocked with a pair of explosions. Just what we were afraid of. Someone else was here.

  TEN: “Hitting the Fan”

  When the five Qi Jia companies arrived in Grand Forks around midnight, they set up camp at the Grand Forks Air Force Base a few miles west of town. Several men raided the local liquor sources and brought plenty of alcohol back for the large groups of soldiers settling around fresh-built fires. They were content to party a little tonight before heading out on their mission in the morning.

  Eddie couldn’t wait. He sent four three-man patrols out on quick recon assessments. He listened to the accounts of dead bodies his men found everywhere, and marveled at the comprehensive effectiveness of Qi Jia’s attack. He was curious if there were any surviving Americans around at all, as eager as the rest of his men for some form of action. Perhaps even a little too eager.

  When one of the patrols pulled into the Cabela’s parking lot around 4 a.m., their THIRST screen picked up two large heat signals behind the store, and after a closer scan, some additional movement inside. As the movement inside the store headed towards the back door, the soldiers moved in. When the four men emerged from the back of the store, the soldiers fired RPGs at the trucks, exploding them both and taking out two of the four men who had come out the back. The other two reversed course into the store, and the Qi Jia troops followed, unaware there were others inside. A close personal friend of Captain Eddie’s, Markus Malik, radioed to the other patrols to inform them they had found survivors and were in pursuit. Back at the base, Eddie listened intently and gave a clear order, “Markus, wait for backup.” But Markus had already shut off his radio prior to entering the store. Neither he nor his men heard the command.

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  Danny and Cameron watched as the two large white men raced across the store and one of them went down with a bullet in his back. The other made it to the gun cases and began loading a rifle. Three men in dark uniforms were closing in on him. There didn’t appear to be anyone else with them. Danny tightened the silencer on his R11 and slowly stood. Cameron followed suit. Danny motioned to Cameron he had the guy on the left, and indicated Cameron should take the guy on the right. He showed Cameron three fingers, and pointed at himself. Cameron nodded. Danny tapped his foot once, then twice, and on the third tap they both fired—suppressed but still audible ‘thwomps’—easily taking down two of the soldiers. The third soldier clearly heard the discharges and instantly became aware he was in trouble, but it was too late. Three seconds later he joined his comrades, dead on the floor.

  Danny grabbed Cameron and pointed at the rest of the group. “We’ve got to go,” he whispered, maintaining watch over the man behind the gun case, who by now had realized he wasn’t being hunted anymore and was heading towards the stairs. Danny kept him in his sights.

  Then the man spoke. “Who’s up there? I know someone’s there. You have to help me. We’ve got to get out of here.” He was climbing the front stairs towards Danny as Cameron was leading everyone else down the back staircase.

  Danny shook his head. He had to make a choice. Take this guy or leave him behind. “Put the guns down and raise your hands,” Danny ordered.

  The man stopped and did as he was told.

  “All of them,” Danny emphasized.

  The man pulled out two handguns and set them on the floor with the others.

  “Okay, you’re go
od. Stand at the back door and don’t leave. Got it?” Danny ordered him.

  The man nodded and followed the instructions. Danny hurried over to the fallen soldiers and searched their pockets but came up empty. The dark uniforms turned out to be red, but he found no other identification. Danny hurried to the back door. Outside, he unplugged the large THIRST screen and radio from the soldiers’ jeep and then raced down the block toward our trucks. The man from the store, Mark, lumbered after Danny and hopped in the first truck with him and Cameron. If there was one jeep of troops out here, there were probably others, and that was confirmed by the back and forth on the radio Danny had grabbed. They had to be part of the army described in the coded message heard at the cabin.

  It was clear the troops in the Grand Forks area knew one of their patrols wasn’t responding. Accordingly, several patrols were now closing in on the site of the last radio contact. Apparently one of the men killed was a close friend of one of the men yelling on the radio. He was frantically asking for the man named “Markus” to respond, or for someone else to relay any news related to him. Must have been related to each other somehow. Danny led us north and west through the back streets and out of town. Cameron believed the troops had probably come from the Air Force base west of town, so we skirted the base a few miles to the north, mere minutes before a drone was launched towards Grand Forks. Radio communication told us several jeeps had arrived at Cabela’s and reported back on the casualties of the Americans and their own Qi Jia men. They didn’t yet know where we were.

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