A New Start: Final Dawn: Book 9 (Volume 9) Read online

  “From watching Cops and those other cable TV shows.”

  “Nice.”

  Frank was trying to be gentle with his friend. After all, they were all rookie mistakes. He’d seen his own homicide rookies make worse mistakes over the years.

  Heck, he’d seen veteran detectives make some of the same stupid mistakes.

  And he’d seen killers set free, let back onto the streets, because of such blunders.

  An outsider observing the conversation might have gotten the impression Frank was trying to talk Marty into dropping the case. Just walking away from it and pretending it never happened.

  That same outsider might have wondered why.

  And if that outsider knew that three of Frank’s friends may have been involved in the murder, he may have wondered if Frank’s real motivation for convincing Marty to drop the case was somewhat nefarious.

  But if that outsider knew Frank… really knew him, entertaining such a thought would have been pure lunacy.

  For Frank was a man of impeccable morals. A cop’s cop. One whose integrity was never questioned. When he retired from the Sheriff’s Office he had a spotless record. He was the only deputy in department history who’d never had a citizen’s complaint filed against him. Never been brought up on charges, never been investigated by internal affairs.

  He was simply beyond reproach.

  And indeed, he did offer to help Marty in his endeavor.

  “I personally believe it’s a lost case. You didn’t do a thorough investigation of the crime scene. You only photographed the obvious things. You should have photographed everything. The defense will say you purposely failed to document things which would have exonerated their client. You didn’t establish a chain of evidence. You left vital evidence where it was accessible by others. The defense will say it could have been tampered with.

  “However, I have a fingerprint kit and I know how to use it. I’ll look at the prints, if you like, and compare them to your suspect’s prints.”

  “If I ever find a suspect, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you, Frank. I appreciate your help, and I’ll bring the shell casings next time I come by to visit.”

  Marty planned to bring those casings to Frank, a few days later. But he’d gotten sidetracked on another project.

  A project vastly more important than solving the murder of a single man outside his jurisdiction.

  This project involved the safety and welfare of the entire population of Eden.

  There was a knock on Marty’s door. It opened and in popped the head of a distinguished looking gentleman of about seventy, perfectly coiffed salt and pepper hair and a broad smile.

  “Hey, Marty, how are you?”

  “Good morning, Mr. Mayor. I’m doing well. I guess.”

  “Stop calling me Mr. Mayor, Marty. We’ve talked about that. Everybody else in this tiny town calls me Al. Even the kids. You should too.”

  “But you’re my boss.”

  “Technically, that’s not accurate. Technically the city council is your boss.”

  “Yes. But you’re the head of the city council. And since only two of you survived, you not only head up the council, you represent fifty percent of it. You’re as close to a boss as anybody else in this town.”

  “True. But you can still call me Al.”

  “I’m old school… Al. I’ll try to remember that. But it might take a while.”

  “Fair enough, Marty. I came by because Samantha told me you stopped by my office to see me while I was out.”

  “Yes. I want your opinion on something.”

  -3-

  A second meteorite? Are you sure? How can that be? I mean, they said the first one was a one in a million chance.

  “As I understand it, this one’s a fragment of the first one, which may or may not have followed the same course.”

  Al was speechless.

  Well, almost.

  “How do you know this woman isn’t just delusional?”

  Marty, honestly, had been wondering the same thing. After all, Hannah had just survived a horrific helicopter crash which claimed the lives of one of Marty’s good friends and several others. She was damaged physically, and still had a hard time getting around.

  Marty was hoping her concerns about Cupid 23 were merely another result of the crash. That perhaps the concussion she’d suffered was making her imagine things which weren’t really there.

  But there was one thing that kept reminding him he should give Hannah the benefit of the doubt. Despite her injuries.

  “She’s the one who first sounded the alarm about Saris 7, Al. I understand she was a very talented and very knowledgeable up and comer with NASA. If anyone knows what they’re talking about, it would be her.

  “Now, having said that, even she isn’t sure the meteorite will impact earth. She said it was a maybe even back then. Before Saris 7 ever impacted. Now she says it’s still a maybe. But a maybe there’s no way to verify.”

  “So, what do you want from me?”

  “I want your opinion. Should we tell the others?”

  Al rubbed his chin and went into deep-thought mode.

  “I… I don’t know, Marty. They’ve been through so much already. Many of them are hanging on by a thread, physically as well as emotionally. Telling them such a thing might drive some of them to suicide.”

  Marty nodded. He’d come to the same conclusion.

  “Look, Al. I thought the same thing. But just ignoring it and pretending it doesn’t exist won’t necessarily make the problem go away. And if we don’t plan, if we don’t prepare for the possibility of a second strike, then we may be dooming all of them to death.”

  Marty’s argument made sense.

  “It looks like we’re between a rock and a hard place.”

  “Yeah. Of course, there’s a third option. But I’ll need your help with it.”

  The mayor looked at him and said, “Which is…”

  “We don’t tell them. We keep it between you and me. At least for the time being. But you give me the resources to start preparing.”

  Al had meant to stop by for just a moment on his way home to fix himself a sandwich for lunch. But this was obviously going to take a bit longer.

  “I’m listening.”

  “We’ve got the old prison. It’s a great place to ride out the storm. Hannah crunched the numbers and has determined this one wouldn’t be as bad as the first. It would be bad, but not as bad, if that makes any sense.

  Al looked at him blankly, expecting much more.

  He went on.

  “Hannah was involved in the calculations to predict the damage they expected by Saris 7. They estimated seven to ten years of below-zero temperatures. Eighty to ninety percent loss of life. Temperatures hovering around zero degrees or so.

  “All of that came true, except the freeze only lasted six and a half years. But even that was close.

  “She applied the same formula to predict the damage for the second strike.

  “She said that because the second meteorite is considerably smaller than the first, the destruction won’t be so severe.

  “She says a thinner dust cloud would cover the sun for a shorter period of time. Three to four years. Temperatures staying below freezing for that entire time, but only occasionally hitting zero.”

  “And the loss of life?”

  “She thinks less this time. Because the people who are alive today have already gone through something much harder. They’re tougher than they once were. Sure, it’ll be bad. But not as bad as before. Maybe fifty percent.”

  “Fifty percent of Eden would die? As though we haven’t lost enough people already?”

  “I wish I didn’t have to tell you this.”

  “You wish? I wish you weren’t telling me this. You have a way of sucking all the joy out of an otherwise beautiful day.”

  “Sorry.”

  “So, you’re advocating we take the old prison and turn it into some kind
of disaster shelter?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And how the hell are we going to prepare it without anybody other than you or me knowing about it?”

  “I have a plan.”

  “My ears are open, Marty. I hope it’s a good one.”

  “I want you to give me twelve people. Hire them off the streets. People are itching to get back to work anyway. Many of them will jump at the chance.”

  “I can’t pay them. The dollar doesn’t exist any more, remember?”

  “I know that, for Christ’s sake. But you can offer them the same deal you’re offering me. Land for labor.”

  Al smiled.

  “Land for labor. That’s a catchy slogan, Marty. Mind if I use it?”

  “Use it. Abuse it. Copyright it and call it your own. Then buy it lunch. I don’t care. Just get me twelve people.”

  “And what will you and the twelve people do?”

  “We’ll stock the prison. With everything we can find. Food, water, fuel. Lumber. Building materials. Anything and everything we can possibly use to keep seventy one people alive for three to four years of freezing temperatures.”

  “Seventy.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “I just got word that old Mrs. Wilson died in her sleep last night. Of natural causes. I can’t remember the last time one of the town’s residents actually died of natural causes.”

  -4-

  In the compound north and east of Eden, Hannah and Mark were involved in their own debate about Cupid 23.

  Only theirs was a bit more sinister. It involved accusations of fraud and conspiracies and cover-ups by Washington insiders.

  And plans to protect those Washington insiders from the wrath of a second strike at the expense of everyone else.

  “Just like before the first strike, those assholes in Washington are only watching out for themselves and their own scummy pals.”

  Mark was adamant. And he wasn’t mincing words much either.

  Hannah was a bit more kind. A bit more level-headed.

  And perhaps a bit more naïve.

  “Honey, you have no proof of that.”

  “The hell I don’t. You and I both know they were building a bunker on the old Kelly Air Force Base. On the back side of the base, where no one on the ground could see it. We saw the long line of cement mixers lined up to pour what must have been a huge slab. A huge underground slab. Because the ground had been cleared away, dug to a depth of sixty feet, remember?”

  “Mark, that could have been anything. A new storage building, maybe. Or maybe a new holding pen for all those animals. I don’t know. The military likes to build things. You know that. They always have.”

  “Bull. You don’t need to store things underground unless you’re trying to store them or protect them from the elements. You did the numbers, Hannah. How deep do you have to be in an underground bunker before the temperature is moderated? Before the temperature is warm enough to live and work comfortably even when it’s freezing outside the bunker? I know you know because you once told me you’d done the calculations and figured it out. How far underground would you have to be?”

  Now he was brow-beating her. He was baiting her. Making her admit to something they both knew.

  Or at least something he knew and she was starting to suspect.

  “At a depth of sixty feet it would be cool but survivable, even when the air temperature above ground was a constant ten to twenty degrees Fahrenheit.”

  Mark smiled. It wasn’t a joyous grin. It was a smile of satisfaction for having been, at least in his own mind, proven right.

  The pair had just returned to the compound from Wilford Hall Regional Medical Center. At one time, Wilford Hall was the jewel of Lackland Air Force base. It was the best trauma center in the south, military or civilian, and treated war wounds as well as local car accident victims. Everyone who needed treatment was welcomed through the facility’s doors with open arms. They even accepted gunshot victims wounded during local gang wars.

  And nearly every one of them left healed, their bodies repaired, their illnesses cured. Or at least managed.

  Before the first strike the facility boasted over two thousand employees; a mix of active duty military from all four branches of the service and of Department of Defense civilian employees.

  The big chill decimated their ranks, of course. Just as it did everywhere else in the world.

  The two thousand was now little more than two hundred.

  But it didn’t take away their dedication, or their desire to right the wrongs that Saris 7 saddled them with. Once the thaw came, the two hundred worked tirelessly to heal every injured or sick body that came their way.

  They’d saved Hannah’s life and Joel’s too, after the helicopter crash.

  They offered to take Sarah in, and to treat her for swelling on the brain, after Nathan Martel had brutalized her so.

  Joel had been listening in to Mark’s conversation with Hannah, but thus far hadn’t said a word. Hannah had invited him to talk some sense into her husband. To convince him that not all of the powerful politicians in Washington were evil. That sometimes they really did do what the American voters expected them to do.

  Not often. But sometimes.

  Hannah was exhausted. She needed a break. She looked to Joel to give it to her.

  “Say something, Joel. Anything. Tell him he’s wrong.”

  But Joel couldn’t. As much as he wanted to, he now had the answers he’d been looking for for quite some time.

  He finally spoke. But it wasn’t in support of Hannah’s argument.

  It was quite the opposite.

  “The area south of Colonel Montgomery’s growing and livestock operation was off-limits to everyone without special clearance. None of us regular folks were allowed in there. We heard the rumors, but the rumors didn’t make any sense. But when we tried to find out what was really going on, we were told it was none of our business, and to stop asking questions.

  “The military has an old saying. Shut up and color. It means look the other way when something doesn’t pass the smell test. Follow orders and do our jobs, even when we don’t like it.

  “And to keep our mouths shut. That’s what they told us. Shut up and color. It as like on the old Wizard of Oz movie, when they caught the old wizard red-handed and he said, ‘Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.’

  “From the ground there wasn’t much to see. The entire area was cordoned off and guarded. Workers who entered the gate every morning had to present their credentials to be allowed in.

  “From the air, though, we could see much more. I asked Colonel Montgomery once about all the trucks. He told me it was a top secret operation to store all of the Army’s munitions in the area so that the area gangs couldn’t get their hands on them and declare war on one another. Then he told me never to speak of the subject again. To him or to anyone else.

  “I could tell by the look in his eyes he was lying.

  “And even if I hadn’t seen the look I knew he was full of shit.

  “For one thing, Fort Sam Houston is the only surviving Army facility in the area. And they’re not a munitions depot. They have small arms and maybe some hand grenades and mortars for training purposes. That’s about it. And they have their own armory and munitions storage facility to store them.

  “I met some of the people who were working on the project. Some of them hung out at the NCO club in the evenings. They all have the same answer when you ask them what they’re doing there.

  “They all say they’re doing a ‘site survey for the DoD.’ That’s it. That’s all they say. I think that’s all they’re allowed to say. When you ask them, ‘a site survey for what?’ they just clam up and change the subject.

  Hannah had invited Joel into the conversation to bolster her argument. Mark’s intent was to change Hannah’s mind.

  And he finally did that.

  He changed Joel’s mind as well.

  Joel went on.

&
nbsp; “For months I’ve wondered what was going on down there, south of the base. Those of us on flight status got a different perspective that nobody else got to see. I was on a helicopter four, sometimes five days a week. We were not allowed to overfly that area. It was restricted air space. But we could see it from a distance.

  “You saw a line of concrete mixers on a single day. I saw them lined up every day for months. Whatever they’re building out there, it’s huge. An underground bunker is the only thing that makes sense.”

  Hannah asked, “Joel, you’ve been to Colonel Montgomery’s livestock area many times. Did you ever see any of the beef being moved out?”

  “Yes. Daily. Every day they’d load up two flatbeds of beef and leave the yard with them. They said they were taking them to give to San Antonio’s survivors. One steer and two cows for each neighborhood so that the survivors could breed their own beef.”

  “What if I tell you we’ve checked with survivors all over the city? And not a single one of them have ever gotten, or even seen, a live cow from the United States Army?”

  Joel asked his own question.

  “Then what have they been doing with them?”

  Mark said, “My guess is they’ve been sending them to slaughter. And probably storing the beef in big freezers somewhere. And when their bunker is done they’ll move it all into there as part of their stores.”

  “I wonder how many people they’re planning for.”

  “I don’t know. Certainly all the politicians in Washington. And their families. That could be hundreds all by itself. And all those engineers doing ‘site surveys’ probably got tickets in as well. Maybe hundreds. Maybe more. And they’ll need a lot of beef to feed hundreds of people for up to four years. Plenty of produce too, which explains Montgomery’s…”

  Hannah finished the sentence for him.

  “Which explains Montgomery’s growing operation. Why he needed some of our seeds.”

  She expressed in words what all three of them were feeling.

  “How could we have been so blind not to see that?”

  The three fell silent for half a minute or so, each lost in their own thoughts.