The Signal (The Bugging Out Series Book 8) Read online

  Whether I’d be able to say that after we’d confronted what lay off the coast, I had no idea.

  Two

  “How did you get to us?” I asked.

  “Lookout spotted you,” Lorenzen said as he helped me up the beach. “They spotted your lights go out and called it in.”

  Lookouts...

  Vestiges of our recent past. Volunteers scanning the roads and seas, and skies for threats. That precaution had been commonplace until the defeat of the Unified Government forces two years earlier. I’d thought that level of watchfulness which had been abandoned as unnecessary would continue as just a memory.

  I was wrong. The appearance of the signal had made it necessary again. What the carrier offshore would force us to do was still an open question.

  “Get me to a ride!”

  It was Beekman barking the order as he pulled away from Enderson off to my right. I looked and saw him stomping up the beach, heading for a pickup with its lights blazing. Enderson looked to his superior and got a quick nod signaling the obvious—do what he wants.

  “He’s hot,” Lorenzen said.

  “Yeah,” I concurred, knowing that Chris Beekman ran at two temperatures—ice cold and boiling. “He’s just trying to understand this. Understand what we saw.”

  “What did you see out there, Fletch?”

  I looked to Lorenzen and stopped on the sand.

  “We’ve got company,” I told him.

  * * *

  “A what?”

  Schiavo had heard me. I knew that as I stood dripping in the town council’s conference room. I’d been given a blanket and towels, and had shed my soaked boots and socks just inside the building’s entrance.

  “An aircraft carrier,” I repeated. “Anchored out there.”

  She paused and looked to Martin, just the three of us in the room where momentous events had been discussed. Where fateful decisions had been made. We all were standing, each behind the chairs we might have sat in had this been some official gathering in times past. To mull over expanding the farming operation. To discuss contact with a newly discovered settlement. Mundane procedural obligations.

  What I’d just brought into the room, though, was not that at all.

  “One of ours,” I said. “A big one. It’s blacked out, with some kind of huge box on its deck.”

  “Box?” Martin pressed.

  “As big as my house,” I said. “We could make out cables coming from it and running down into the ship through one of the lowered aircraft elevators.”

  Schiavo was quiet for a moment, openly puzzling over the details I’d just shared. She wasn’t unnerved or frightened in any way. It was simply her process of filtering through the information presented to mentally highlight the most salient bits.

  When she spoke, though, it was not regarding the intelligence she’d been given. Instead she looked straight at me, her gaze softened without going soft. There was humanity in her eyes. Gratitude.

  “Thank you for doing this, Fletch.”

  It would not be right to dismiss her appreciation. We’d been through enough for me to understand that she did not take lightly her place in asking others to face unknowns. Especially when those unknowns turned dangerous. Or deadly.

  “I’m glad we found what was out there,” I told her.

  “Except we don’t know what that ‘what’ is,” Martin said.

  “We will.”

  The assurance Schiavo offered was as much for herself as it was for us.

  “Could you identify the carrier?” Martin asked. “It should have a big number on it.”

  I shook my head.

  “It was dark, and, to be honest, I was a bit overwhelmed by the thing being there at all.”

  There was sound in the hallway and beyond. A door opening. Wheels spinning on tile, then carpet. A moment later Elaine rolled into the conference room, Westin following as far as the doorway a few seconds later.

  “Are you all right?” Elaine asked me as she wheeled herself close.

  I nodded and bent down, letting her hug me over the blankets and towels. After a few seconds she eased back and stared at me.

  “What happened out there?”

  It took a few minutes to bring her up to speed.

  “It’s not drifting,” Elaine said.

  Schiavo shook her head.

  “At anchor,” Martin confirmed.

  “Two anchors,” I added, recalling detail I hadn’t shared before. “The chains entered the water at a shallow angle.”

  “That means someone wants it locked in that position,” Martin said. “They dropped one anchor, then moved a bit before dropping the other and drawing them taut.”

  “It also means the same someones sailed it there,” Elaine said, all of us knowing that was a statement of fact—not some theory.

  “Sgt. Westin...”

  The garrison’s com expert looked to his commander and straightened slightly where he’d stood in the doorway.

  “Ma’am?”

  “That thing Fletch described on deck, with the cables running from it, are we looking at that as the source of the signal?”

  It was an obvious question Schiavo was asking. I’d wondered the same thing as Chris Beekman piloted us away from the massive ship and back toward home. What we needed, though, and what Schiavo sought, was certainty.

  “It would make sense,” Westin said, falling short of the clarity he was being asked to provide. “There’s only one way to be sure.”

  “And that is?” Schiavo pressed.

  “Sever the cables,” Westin answered. “If the signal stops, we’d know.”

  I’d thought as Chris Beekman turned us away from the carrier that we would, without a doubt, return to it. Some of us, at least. Westin’s reply to his commander’s question all but cemented the reason for doing so.

  “Elaine’s right,” Schiavo said. “We won’t be alone out there.”

  We...

  Schiavo had very plainly marked herself as one of those to make the return trip. Those who would accompany her were yet to be decided. As were a few more important details.

  “Just how are we going to get onboard?” I asked.

  We...

  It could be argued that I was using the term only generally, as it could for Schiavo’s usage of the word. But she hadn’t, and neither was I. She flashed a brief, thin, knowing smile at me. Once more, she and I would be facing an unknown together.

  “I’ve shimmied up an anchor chain before,” I said. “It’s not exactly a sure thing.”

  I’d done so when sneaking aboard the Groton Star with Neil after the freighter, which had become Bandon’s supermarket, was seized. That was a relatively short climb. Getting aboard a carrier would not be.

  “I don’t think they’re designed for easy access from the water,” Elaine said.

  “Especially if someone doesn’t want us to get aboard,” Martin added.

  Us...

  Martin, too, had thrown in with the inevitable return to the carrier. If familial circumstances were different, and if a piece of shrapnel from a Unified Government tank shell hadn’t severed her spine, I was certain that Elaine would add her name to the list of those ready to face whatever was to be found on the carrier.

  “Fletch, did you see any sign of life?” Schiavo asked. “Any movements or light.”

  “To be honest, it looked like a ghost ship,” I said.

  The colonel thought for a moment. Chewing on the possibilities. And the resources at hand.

  “Do we have any vessels that can make that sort of trip out to the carrier?” Schiavo asked Elaine.

  My wife, who’d not only taken on the job of mayor, but had taken it with the utmost seriousness, had spent countless hours schooling herself in the town’s capabilities. Everything from planted acreage to petroleum production. And the town’s small but growing fishing fleet. Virtually every boat had been scuttled in the harbor when the population, en masse, had been taken to Skagway years ago. Since then,
one by one, boats had been refloated, and repaired, and, most amazing of all, had found small success fishing the waters off the coast. Long ago a whale had been spotted blasting air from its blowhole, a joyous event in and of itself. But what lay beneath the waters, species which had, somehow, survived, were beginning to thrive again. As we were.

  As we had been.

  “I’d say Orville Pehrsson’s boat is the most capable for an ocean voyage,” Elaine answered.

  “The Blue Streak,” I said.

  That was the name of Orville’s fishing boat. An old, squat beast that he’d tended to long before the blight hit, and spent a full year restoring after it was brought up from the bottom of the harbor.

  “Orville will do whatever we ask,” Elaine said.

  “I know,” Schiavo said, though her agreement hinted little at satisfaction with the situation. “He’s not the one I’m worried about.”

  She looked to me, and I knew what she was thinking. And who she was thinking about. Getting to the carrier on the Blue Streak was more than possible. Transferring from that craft to the larger boat on a likely choppy sea would be almost impossible.

  Unless we had people already on the carrier to assist. To drop lines. Ropes to climb.

  “It may not even be possible, Angela,” I said.

  “We have to ask him,” she said.

  The others caught on right then to what Schiavo was proposing.

  “You want Beekman to try and land on that carrier?” Martin asked. “He just lost an aircraft. You think he’s gonna risk the one he’s got left to try that?”

  “Navy pilots train for years to do what you’re suggesting,” Elaine said.

  “We don’t have years,” Schiavo told her before setting her attention on me. “Where is he?”

  “Last I saw him, Mo was driving him away from the beach,” I said.

  “Sgt. Enderson dropped him at the airport,” Westin added.

  “The airport?” Schiavo pressed.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Westin confirmed.

  His house was close to the airport, but not adjacent. Why he’d wanted to be taken there, I had no idea.

  “I’ll talk to him this time,” Schiavo said, looking to me.

  “I wouldn’t—”

  “Fletch, his personal animosity doesn’t matter anymore,” she said, cutting me off. “We need him. This town needs him.”

  I shook my head, but not in disagreement with her sentiment.

  “Not now, Angela,” I said. “Later today. Give him some time. A little time. He needs to cool down after what just happened.”

  She considered my suggestion. It was already a new day, minus the coming light of the rising sun.

  “He’s right,” Martin agreed. “Chris runs at extremes.”

  Martin had known the man longer than any of us. And had dealt with his moods and idiosyncrasies.

  “Angela...”

  Schiavo turned to my wife. The two women, the two leaders, just looked at each other for a moment.

  “Everyone needs some rest,” Elaine said. “It’s been a rough night. The ship’s not going anywhere. Clearer heads can deal with this later today.”

  She considered all that had been said, then let out a tired half chuckle as she looked to Westin.

  “Sergeant, you want to pile on as well?”

  Westin smiled and shook his head.

  “Going against my commander has never been a wise move,” he told her.

  “Well, in this case you’d be right to do so,” Schiavo said, then fixed on me again. “I’d appreciate it if you’d come along, Fletch. For a friendly face. But I’ll do the talking this time.”

  That might be an unwise approach, but, in all honesty, I agreed with her at this juncture. Chris Beekman had to let the past go and put what was best for Bandon, and himself, ahead of all other considerations. That might mean fireworks, but, at the end of the day, he was going to do what needed to be done.

  “I’ll swing by and pick you up about noon,” I told Schiavo.

  “All right,” she agreed. “I’ll be at home.”

  I gave a quick nod and watched her and Martin leave together, the tension plain about her. She hated waiting to deal with a situation, even if doing so was both necessary and prudent.

  “You two are going to need a ride,” Westin said.

  “Where’s Hope?” I asked, noting our daughter’s absence for the first time since my wife’s arrival.

  “We dropped her at Clay and Grace’s on the way here,” Elaine told me. “We can pick her up later in the morning.”

  Everything was moving forward, with relative smoothness, so that this new situation could be dealt with. Except...

  “Thanks, Ed,” I said. “Can you give us a minute?”

  “Of course,” he said, hesitating for just an instant before disappearing down the hallway and out the front door.

  For a moment I said nothing. I didn’t even look at my wife, my gaze fixed absently at the space where the sergeant had been.

  “Eric...”

  Her voice drew me out of the distance I’d let well up within. I took a chair and turned it to face Elaine, sitting and taking both of her hands in mine.

  “Does this all feel right to you?” I asked.

  She gave me a quizzical look, as if she was trying to decipher the subject of my question.

  “Of course not,” she answered. “That ship shouldn’t be out—”

  I shook my head, cutting her off.

  “No, not just that,” I said, searching for some way to convey what was just now troubling me. “The choreography of everything. The signal. The carrier. Our reaction. Doesn’t it seem...”

  “Seem what?” she prompted.

  The gist of what had spurred my unease became clear right then. And it scared the hell out of me.

  “Convenient,” I said.

  She let what I’d said hang between us for a moment, still attempting some understanding. But it wasn’t reaching her.

  “A threat appears, one that we can’t ignore, and we react,” I said. “We go to it.”

  “What should we do?”

  The answer was both obvious and impossible, at least to me.

  “Run,” I said.

  Elaine took a breath, one meant to calm me as much as give her a moment to gather her thoughts. She reached up and put a hand to my cheek, her touch warm against my still-chilled skin.

  “You’re exhausted,” she told me. “And cold. Probably not far from hypothermic.”

  “I know,” I said. “That doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

  “Sweetheart...”

  “Elaine, why is that carrier off the coast? Anchored off the coast? Our coast?”

  My cascade of questions elicited no response from her. Not because she couldn’t offer any, but because she thought I was engaged in some cathartic release of stress.

  She wasn’t entirely wrong.

  “The President sends his plane here,” I said. “The Unified Government attacks us twice, right here. As far back as the Seattle Hordes throwing themselves at us, Bandon has been a place our enemies and our friends have known about. We’re a target, Elaine. This place. This spot on the map.”

  She thought for a second, letting her hand ease away from my face.

  “Maybe as long as we’re here, someone, or something, is going to keep coming at us,” I said.

  “The entire town can’t run,” she said.

  “Some of us did,” I reminded her.

  “A few dozen people relocating to Remote is not what you’re talking about,” she countered. “That’s starting a new settlement, not...”

  She stopped there, realizing, I knew, that she was engaged in a losing battle.

  “You’re not seriously suggesting this, right?”

  “I’m just being open with you,” I told her. “Maybe it is all exhaustion, or more. Maybe it is. But I am actually worried. Yesterday I wasn’t, but today I am. People have thrown a lot at us. I’m afraid of what may come aft
er this. I mean, come on—an aircraft carrier? Who are we to warrant something like that, unless we’re still a threat to someone out there.”

  She didn’t dispute what I’d just said. In fact, for the first time since I’d begun voicing my concern, I saw a glimmer of recognition in her gaze. A hint of acceptance.

  My fear was now, in some small way, becoming her fear.

  “Let’s go home,” she said.

  I nodded and leaned forward from my chair and kissed her, then stood and pushed her out of the room and down the hallway. We would be home in ten minutes. Asleep in twenty. And in a few short hours we would wake again. To face this new test of our ability, and our will, to survive.

  Three

  “Excuse me, Sergeant?”

  Westin nodded at Schiavo, reaffirming the statement he’d just made. He’d caught us both at the curb as she was about to climb into my pickup for the drive to the airport.

  “Yes, ma’am. Another signal. Except...”

  “Except what?” she pressed him.

  “This one was brief,” Westin answered. “An instantaneous burst of energy across the electromagnetic spectrum.”

  “Burst,” I said, and the garrison’s com expert nodded.

  “How were you able to detect that with the jamming?” Schiavo asked.

  “It briefly overpowered the signal that’s shut down our com,” Westin answered. “It originated on the same axis. In the same general direction. Southwest of us.”

  “Could it have come from the carrier?” I asked.

  “Unlikely,” Westin said. “It was...powerful.”

  Schiavo eyed the man for a few seconds.

  “Sergeant, are you describing an explosion?”

  “Ma’am, I don’t know,” Westin said. “The only kind of explosion to produce electromagnetic waves on this scale...”

  “Nuclear,” I said.

  “I can’t discount that,” Westin agreed.

  “But the jamming signal is still there, so it didn’t come from the carrier,” Schiavo said.

  “My belief, ma’am, is that it originated far beyond the carrier.”

  “Can you determine how far?” Schiavo asked.