DIG

Impact Series

Book 6

By

E.E. Isherwood

Mike Kraus

© 2020 Muonic Press Inc

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Author Notes

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Special Thanks

Special thanks to my awesome beta team, without whom this book wouldn’t be nearly as great.

Thank you!

Chapter 1

Old Faithful, Yellowstone, WY

“Did you ever think you’d see this place again?” Asher asked Grace, while standing next to the burned-out husk of the Old Faithful Inn. Built in 1904, it was once the largest log hotel in America. As the centerpiece of the Old Faithful tourist area, she’d been taught basic facts about it during her park ranger orientation. She’d been inside a few times, always marveling and gawking at the spacious interior like any other tourist. However, now it was nothing but piles of bed springs, charred logs, and the solemn remains of the foundry-sized stone fireplace.

Grace paused to think it over before replying. “I always knew I’d come back, but I didn’t figure it would be this soon.” It had been three days since they’d survived the attack by Nerio and her husband. She and Asher had split up from Shawn’s people as part of their combined strategy. Shawn and his Crow people stuck with Randy and his train. They planned to come at the dig site from the south. Her mission was to return to Yellowstone National Park and round up all the law enforcement rangers she could find. However, after a quick pass through Mammoth Hot Springs to confirm the place was abandoned, they’d gone to the middle of the park and found the same thing at Old Faithful. Several square miles of parking lot had once provided barely enough room for all the tourists to park their minivans and touring RVs. Today, it was a ghost town coated in black soot.

Asher pointed with excitement. “There! Look at those people.” He pointed across the flat gravel field surrounding the Old Faithful geyser. The geyser itself sat inside a wide ring of flat benches spaced about fifty yards from the water feature. The rocks provided another hundred yards of buffer between the geyser and the ruined hotel. The trees were blackened on the hillside far beyond Old Faithful, which made the people’s bright clothing stand out.

“I don’t believe it,” she said with frustration. “The whole world has gone to pot and there are still tourists trying to get themselves burned with scalding hot water.” On the way into the park, she was shocked to find the gates were wide open, with no one manning them. She didn’t have the authority to close and lock them, but she did shut them. Still, she’d assumed closing them was unnecessary. Everyone knew the asteroid had effectively ended the tourist season, right?

“Come on, we have to hurry.”

“Why?” He looked up in the sky. “Is the helicopter back?”

They’d spent part of their journey avoiding Nerio in her helicopter, but the last few days had devolved into a series of cat-and-mouse encounters with other aircraft. Although they weren’t sure they were being watched or followed, they always used caution and assumed they were being hunted by TKM. Whenever they spotted activity in the sky, they did everything possible to avoid it.

“No,” she replied, now running across the hundred yards of gravel. “But those people are in danger.”

She yelled ahead, unsure if they would hear her. “Hey! Get out of there!”

They ran up to the semicircle of benches. Fifty feet away, a crusty white crater started spewing bursts of steaming water from its top in ever larger quantities. It seemed to defy logic that the tourists would stand right where the water from Old Faithful was about to fully erupt. What were they thinking?

“Hey!” she shouted, hesitating at the bench.

The hiss of the geyser made it difficult for the people to hear her, or so she assumed. None of them were looking back at her. Instead, they pointed and hopped from rock to rock to get a better view of the steamy stream, still growing in intensity.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but we have to go out there.”

He looked at her. “Won’t they figure it out?” Asher absently slapped his boot in a large puddle. All the seats were wet, as was the soot-stained walkway. It looked like it had rained recently.

Old Faithful could send water almost two hundred feet in the air. If the people were lucky enough to stand upwind, the spray might not touch them at all, despite being so close. However, the wind seemed to blow in her face; all of them would soon be doused with super-heated water. As much as she wanted to let them learn a hard lesson so she could get on with her more important mission, she couldn’t let them get burned. Then she’d be saddled with finding medical help for them.

“Come on, Ranger. This is what we do.” She hopped off the wooden walkway and went onto the open ground around the geyser. Unlike the thin crust at Mammoth Hot Springs, people had been standing too close to Old Faithful for over a hundred years. She didn’t have to worry about falling into subterranean channels of water.

Asher followed a moment later. The ground rumbled as she went. It had such force it was necessary to halt and observe.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Something new,” she said with concern. “It’s never done that before.”

It wasn’t a random grouping of tourists in front of her. It was three teenaged kids and their parents. The two young boys were hanging out on the white rocks next to the building stream of water, already getting wisps of hot steam blown their way. The teen girl and her mother gave the geyser the most distance. The father hovered between the two groups, as if unsure if he should stay back or move forward. He probably didn’t realize all of them were much too close.

She still had half the distance to cover, but she needed to get their attention over the increasingly loud roar of water. The last thing she ever would have done a week ago was pull out a pistol, clear the safety, then fire a round into the air, but she did it to save them. When the gun went off, the family’s heads whipped around.

Grace waved and screamed, “Get out of there!”

They didn’t respond in the way she expected, though she should have known better. The mother and father flashed her the okay sign, then seemed to shout and wave their kids to one side. Instead of going away from the turbulent chop of spray and steam, they tried to move around it, toward the upwind side.

“Are you people stupid?” Asher said with despair.

The ground rumbled with more force than before. A lone jet of water came out of the geyser spout, spraying them all with a hot mist. That’s when the screams began.

Grace didn’t have the time to explain the tourist mindset. Being outdoors in the presence of Mother Nature didn’t affect everyone the same way. Most people stayed on the benches and watched the spectacle from afar. Others turned off their common sense and walked right up to the edge of the crater to watch it. They were the same type of people who beat their chests or hurled insults to provoke the buffalo, then complained the loudest when the big animals charged them. It happened every season. Despite her private feelings, it was her duty to protect visitors, even the idiotic ones. She bumped Asher. “We have to pull them out. They aren’t getting the picture. I think they’re panicking.”

“I’m not doing much better,” he said in a loud voice. “Is this shaking normal?”

Some of the small rocks sitting on top of the bare ground bounced and scrambled, as if a titan were shaking the land to pan for gold. Soon it would be difficult to stand, much less run.

“No, this is far from normal. I think the falling rock changed something. We have to hurry!”

The family stumbled on their sideways walk, but she ran toward them to help. Ahead, the normally predictable and well-behaved Old Faithful geyser was now a feral dog, spewing alternating blasts of steam and bucket-like heaves of water over its sides. If the shaking and rumbling was any indication of what was coming, they only had seconds to get clear.

When she got right up to the family, she roared in a decidedly un-park ranger-like tone.

“Run for your freaking lives!”

Green River, WY

“I can’t believe we’re almost to Grace.” Ezra wiped sweat from his brow. They’d spent the night in a functioning hotel, but walking across the parking lot in the morning sunshine already had him ready for the air conditioning of the truck.

“Three days on the highway,” Butch replied, not sounding rested at all. “It should have taken us twelve hours, tops, in the old days.”

He agreed with the sentiment. Much of their trip was taken on side roads rather than the main highways. Part of it was because he was certain TKM was going to come looking for their stolen truck, but there was more to it. The interstates were filled with refugees, construction equipment, and military vehicles. Listening to the radio, he was able to piece together the various dig sites of the fallen asteroid fragments. Those locations were attractive to treasure hunters and miners intent on scoring some of the precious ore, but they were also repulsive to civilians desperate to escape the looting and gun battles common around each of the sites. The National Guard was mobilized everywhere, according to the news, but they weren’t anywhere to be seen in the chaos of the high plains. Ezra had to drive on remote two-lane roads to avoid population centers and traffic jams between Kansas City and the western half of Wyoming.

Haley came out of the lobby last. “I’ve been studying the map. The turnoff to head north is at the other end of town. We’re basically there if we can get through traffic.”

They’d done their research. The piece of asteroid which had scraped the treetops of Yellowstone National Park had bounced south and came to a stop in a broad valley between the towns of Big Piney and Boulder. He’d looked at the map, too. They had about seventy-five miles to go. The problem was the highway, as always. She was right about traffic. It was legendary.

“I think that’s the same truck we saw last night,” Butch exclaimed, pointing to the interstate about a mile away. “The highway hasn’t moved.” It looked like a construction site, there were so many dump trucks, flatbeds carrying tractors, and giant mobile cranes.

Ezra paused. “You really think it’s the same one?”

Butch shrugged. “Maybe. It sure doesn’t look like it’s moving. Not even an inch.”

“The map says we’re getting off the highway and onto a two-lane road again. It will take us directly north to the site.”

Ezra walked again. “That explains it. This packed highway is trying to merge onto a smaller two-lane strip of pavement to go north toward the dig. Maybe it was a mistake to take the night off. Now we may never reach her.”

He tried not to get himself down. Ezra had talked to Grace a few times the past few days. He was aware of her choice to go to Yellowstone Park, but they’d agreed it didn’t make sense for him to follow her there since she planned to keep moving. She was going to meet him at the dig site itself with any rangers she could enlist to help her.

Haley chuckled as they reached the truck. “I couldn’t have gone on. The sleep I got last night was the first solid shut-eye I’ve managed to sneak in since I met you two.”

“Yeah, I know,” he replied. “I needed the sleep, too.” If Butch was right and the highway hadn’t moved all night, they’d definitely made the right call to spend that time in a real bed.

Haley went on. “By the by, if we could get the redheaded wench to bring her helicopter back, we could hop a ride on it.”

“As her prisoners?” Butch said with surprise.

“No, you big goof,” she said good-humoredly. “She’d be our prisoner.”

He laughed as he heaved his duffel into the bed of the truck. They’d picked up a few sets of clothes, toothbrushes, and the like over the past few days on the road. Mostly stuff they’d acquired at gas stations and truck stops.

Ezra stood next to the TKM vehicle, looking back at the modern hotel. Behind it, towering above the three-story structure, a pair of massive rock spires dominated the landscape, like two stone elephants walking the ridgeline of the steep hill. Unlike the portion of Wyoming they’d already crossed, the flatlands were gone. There were still a lot of scrubby grasses and weeds, but they clung to broken hills and valleys. While he admired the beauty of the scenery, cars sped into the parking lot.

“E-Z, I think we’ve got trouble,” Butch cautioned.

Five or six pickup trucks came in through two entrances on the lot. The vehicles cut across empty parking spots and drove right for them.

“Guys, weapons.” He said it quietly, and in a level voice.

One thing that had changed in America was the carrying of weapons. Yesterday, they’d walked into the hotel with rifles slung over their shoulders. The prim woman behind the counter gave them a few sideways glances, but she didn’t try to stop them from taking the guns into the hotel. The buffet breakfast room was interesting that morning as patrons propped their shotguns and rifles next to their coffee and donuts.

He never thought he’d need a gun at a hotel.

“Be cool,” he said. It was hard to say how many men were in each truck, but if there were only drivers, they’d be outnumbered five to three. His window of initiative was all but closed when the first truck stopped directly behind their ride.

There was no backing out.

Chapter 2

Old Faithful, Yellowstone, WY

The tourists struggled on the rocks around the geyser, tripping and sliding as the shaking got worse. Once on the ground, they seemed to finally comprehend the danger they were in. Their eyes fell on Grace, and the parents warned their kids. They all got up and sprinted toward her and Asher as if they were the last lifeboats on the Titanic. As they came to her, she was glad they’d turned their back on Old Faithful; it erupted with more fizz and steam than she’d ever observed in past eruptions.

“Don’t stop!” she urged the teen boys as they sped by. She said the same thing as the mother and daughter ran by hand in hand, and she shouted the loudest when the father passed her. “Get them far away!”

She and Asher then chased them. The big-city boy still wasn’t quite as fast as her, but he’d improved his pace since their first run across the delicate shell of Mammoth Hot Springs. She was no longer worried he’d fall behind or that she’d have to drag him across the finish line. They were both in better shape, and…

The shaking turned violent, causing her to misplace her foot, fall over, and face-plant on the rocky terrain.

Asher didn’t see her for a few seconds. She was struggling to her feet when he did, then he stopped and turned around.

“No! Go!” she yelled.

The unearthly roar made it too noisy to be heard. He probably knew what she’d said, but he still ran back the ten or fifteen feet to grab her arm as she struggled upright. His eyes went to the geyser behind her, causing Grace to turn slightly.

“Oh my—”

He yanked at her arm, prompting her to move.

She was disappointed in herself for needing to be reminded of the obvious danger, but she’d entered wildly uncharted territory. The plume of water was ten times bigger than she’d ever seen it before. The geyser opening and chambers below must have been widened thanks to the nearby asteroid impact. It was the only option which made any sense.

They sprinted for the benches. The family had regrouped there, and they watched her and Asher approach. This time, they were the ones pointing and yelling at her. She knew what they were saying.

What goes up must come down.

In a flash, she knew why the benches were soaked. The geyser had gone off recently. With its greater punch, the entire walkway and the benches needed to be moved far back.

For a few seconds it was a competition in waving. They waved her in, and she waved them to go back. When she hopped onto the platform, the first drops of hot water slapped off the brim of her wide hat.

“Keep going!” she yelled, whipping off her hat and clumsily putting it on the girl’s head.

The parents struggled with their children. The kids were enthralled by the mushroom cloud of water and foam jetting several hundred feet above them. She had to physically push them backward, but even that stern guidance didn’t get them all going in the same direction. Only when more of the hot water struck their exposed skin did they let go of the sightseeing.

“Yeow!” one of the boys yelped.

“It burns!” the mother cried out.

“Go!” Asher bellowed.

The water came down in sheets. It hit the benches about a hundred feet to her left, but it moved in steady cadence toward her and the others. As she cleared the last row of seats, Grace realized they were seconds from a horrible burn. The water was over two hundred and fifty degrees right below the surface, and though it cooled as it shot in the air, she couldn’t be sure that would matter. With the greater volume looming above them, the liquid would stay hot for a lot longer. Maybe it would still be boiling when it struck the ground…

She watched the five tourists keep their feet as they ran. To their credit, they’d done a better job of escape than she had. The water smacked down on the benches directly behind her, and it crept onto the gravel at her back, but they were soon far from the splash zone.

Grace stopped well before the family did. She grabbed Asher when she was certain they were safe. She spoke through her heaving breaths. “Hold up. Check it out.”

“Wow,” he said, taking a moment to absorb it.

Old Faithful typically went up to one hundred fifty or two hundred feet. What she saw was a geyser that had to be every bit of five hundred. She imagined it was going to touch the clouds dotting the blue sky above.

“Yeah. Wow.”

The breeze kept the spray from coming in their direction. The drape of watery mist made it impossible to see the far end of the circle of benches or the burned trees behind Old Faithful. It was pure white in that direction, complemented by a hissing roar and the falling water slamming to the pavement and rocks around the base.

“The park has changed,” she said dryly. “This is going to draw people in from everywhere once we get the park back up and running.” The thought made her wonder about the family, so she and Asher retreated farther to meet them.

As soon as she was close, the mother handed back the hat Grace gave to the daughter. “Thank you so much for protecting my family. We owe you our lives.”

“It’s nothing,” she demurred. “We happened to be in the area when we saw you.” Her next question had to be delicately stated, so as to avoid insulting the parents. What she wanted to say was, “how stupid do you guys have to be to walk next to an active geyser?” What she actually said was, “How did you guys come to be here?”

The woman seemed to speak for her husband. “Bob and I have had this trip to Yellowstone planned for a year. We know it’s crazy on the highways and in many cities, but there’s no way we were going to cancel.”

It was what she expected. Though she didn’t see any tourists back at Mammoth Hot Springs, she was certain someone would be along shortly. She was also positive they’d take the opportunity to walk off the pathways and get into trouble. It was the one constant she could always depend on with park visitors.

“Well, I hope you all learned a valuable lesson about Mother Nature,” she said, trying to sound both cheerful and helpful, as a park ranger always should.

The young girl spoke up. “Yeah. When Mom and Dad say they want to take you to see the coolest park in the country, tell them no.”

“We’re out of here,” the dad finally said.

“Couldn’t agree more,” she replied. “Which way are you heading?”

“South,” he stated.

“We’ll follow you to the gate,” she added. It was her polite way of saying it was her job to kick them out. On the way, she hoped to find someone in charge.

Green River, WY

“How can we help you?” Ezra said by way of a friendly greeting. The trucks had him surrounded. They could either start shooting at total strangers or try to defuse what had to be a misunderstanding.

The thin man who jumped out of the first truck was Native American. He was about Ezra’s age with black hair peeking out from under his worn leather cowboy hat. The guy also carried a huge double-barreled hunting shotgun. When he made it to the front of his truck, he aimed the shotgun at Ezra’s group. “Don’t make a move!”

Ezra put his arms up, recognizing he couldn’t shoot his way out of the encounter without spilling a lot of blood, some of it likely his own. “We won’t.”

Haley and Butch also put their hands up, though Butch seemed reluctant.

As the others got out of their trucks, they used their vehicles to shield themselves from Ezra’s party, though they also pointed weapons in his direction. A teen girl stood next to the truck closest to Ezra. He figured they were told by the leader to stay back. It was what he would have done had their positions been reversed.

The leader spoke again as soon as their hands were where he could see them. “We thought all you TKM scum were gone from Green River. Why are you still here?”

Ezra laughed. “Oh, the truck!” He lowered his arms without thinking.

“Don’t even try it!” the man bellowed.

He whipped his arms back up. “Easy! We’re on your side. We’re not with TKM. We stole this truck back in Kansas City.”

The nervous man studied them intently. “Kansas City, huh? And you drove all the way here, to the one place TKM employees seem to be gathering. Either you’re the dumbest bunch of miners I’ve ever met, or you’re trying to be clever and make us let our guard down so you can escape.”

“He’s telling the truth,” Haley added.

The man shifted his shotgun in her direction. “Quiet! I’m sure you’d back up your boss.”

Haley chuffed. “How do you know I’m not his boss?”

The leader looked taken aback. “Are you?”

She thought about it for a few seconds, then admitted the truth. “No.”

“We’re all partners,” Butch added in a calming voice. “Because we’re not part of a sadistic organization like TKM. We watched them blow up half of Kansas City when they detonated their rock there. We stole this truck mostly as a result of thinking so little of them.”

The shotgun swung toward Butch. “I think you’re the leader. I can tell by the way you carry yourself and your rifle. You’re smooth. No wasted motion. I know you’re sizing me up in your head right this moment. Waiting to see if I lower my gun so you can make your move.”

Butch smiled sheepishly. “Two years in the sandy butt crack of the Middle East has made me skittish. Sue me.”

Ezra tagged back in. “No, it’s all the truth. Why won’t you believe us? We’re not with them.”

The man came in front of his truck but didn’t lower his guard. “This is what’s going to happen. You three will set your weapons on the ground, then you’re going to back away. We’ll confiscate your truck and gear and take you to our base of operations. From there, we’ll have access to law enforcement databases, and we can validate your claims.”

It was better than being shot, but not ideal. He happened to turn back toward the motel. A pair of figures stood on the ridgeline next to the giant elephant spires, almost certainly with these civilians. It made him realize they weren’t dealing with novices. Someone on their side had training, so he needed to tread with caution.

Ezra got the man’s attention. “I’m on my way to meet my daughter. I can’t be delayed for too long or I’ll miss her. Can you tell me how far we have to go?”

The guy shook his head. “Seriously? You want me to tell you our plan to take down the last TKM dig site, too?”

He wanted to say yes, but his intention wasn’t to antagonize anyone. “I only want to get to my daughter.”

The men on the hillside were gone. He did a quick sweep of the rocky escarpment below the summit, but spotted nothing. However, the other drivers had crept up to within a few feet without him even noticing. It was if he were surrounded by a professional hunting party.

“I’m Calvin Tames Horse of the Crow Nation. Brother of Chairman Shawn Runs Hard. For now, you’re our prisoners. If you’re telling the truth, you’ll be on your way in no time. If you’re not…”

Ezra gulped involuntarily.

They were relieved of their weapons, patted down, then directed into the leader’s old-school blue Ford F-150. He and Haley were shoved onto the bench seat, while Butch was stuck in the cargo bed. The leader climbed into the driver’s seat, while the teen girl wedged herself into the front seat next to Haley, pistol in hand.

“This really isn’t necessary,” Haley complained, looking at how they were squished together. “We can’t fit four in the front seat of this thing. I could sit out there with him. We won’t try to escape and leave our leader.”

Calvin leaned in front of Ezra as he put the truck in gear. “So, this guy is the boss? It implies a structure in your unit. Are you sure you aren’t with TKM?”

She paused. “We aren’t a unit, but I guess he was the captain of a boat we were on. None of that matters now. I promise we aren’t with TKM, but I don’t like how you’ve got my friend alone back there. It’s not safe to ride in the bed of a truck.”

He laughed a little, but not in a mean way. “Trust me. Look around at the stopped traffic. We aren’t going to be going fast. Besides, I’m a pretty good judge of character. Have to be when you work as a mechanic next to the interstate. See all types of people, you know? And I’ve seen some characters over the past week, let me tell you.”

“So, you believe us?” Ezra suggested.

“Yeah, maybe. Had a cousin once who did some hard time for a crime he didn’t commit. Know what it’s like to profess to be innocent but not be listened to. We’ll get you to that database, check you out, and then get you on your way as fast as possible. It’s the best I can do for you.” He let Haley get out and climb in the back with Butch.

Once the girl hopped back in the cabin, she stayed near the door, giving him plenty of room.

“On we go,” Calvin remarked.

The truck rolled out of the parking lot, with the others behind, including the stolen TKM pickup with all his stuff. It wasn’t how he’d hoped to start his day, but he was thankful it was a simple misunderstanding with these civilians. If they’d been picked up by actual TKM employees, who’d presumably know what they’d done in St. Charles and Kansas City, his day would look a lot less rosy.

Anticline Ranch, WY

“I can’t believe my life has devolved into living like a hobo.” Petteri Tikkanen looked around the dusty camp. His company had brought in dozens of air-conditioned semi-trailers, a similar number of expensive recreational vehicles, as well as a hundred and fifty loaner FEMA pods, which were essentially shipping containers with a few small windows. His command center was set up in a ranch house a hundred yards northeast of the giant black asteroid. The structure, which had a sign denoting the place as Anticline Ranch, had barely survived having the rock roll by.

“What was that, sir?” Mr. Aarons asked.

He coughed to cover his own misgivings. It wasn’t hard to do with all the dust flying around. His makeshift airfield over the hill on the western side of the dig site was constantly throwing up dust storms as helicopters and planes took off and landed. “Nothing. Carry on with your briefing.”

Mr. Aarons sat to his left. A second security man was next person down the conference table. An array of lawyers, dig site supervisors, and technical advisors sat in the other ten chairs. Dorothy sat to his immediate right. Nerio stood near the far end of the room, watching the discussion with eyes he was certain were cooking up the most efficient ways to kill every person at the table. She’d been disarmed, of course, but he wasn’t sure it improved his chances if she really wanted him gone.

“Thank you, sir. What we know is TKM forces have control of every town between the two mountain ranges bracketing this valley. It gives us breathing space of about fifty miles, peak to peak. To the north, Yellowstone is a smoldering wreck. The town of Jackson was devastated. The roads are barely passable. We don’t have much to worry about from that direction.”

He laughed. “You make it sound like this wretched valley is filled with towns to be taken over. How many, exactly, are there?” He knew the answer but wanted to stay on top of his security man.

“Actually, we cleared out one of the bigger towns completely. Now there are only two we have to worry about: Big Piney to the west. Boulder to the east. If all the citizens stayed after the asteroid dropped, we’re talking maybe five hundred souls between the two towns.”

“Exactly. Not much to worry about. And there’s a high pass to the north where the two mountain ranges converge. This piece of rock couldn’t have come down in a more defensible position for us. We’re inside an inverted V. Now, tell me about the direction that really matters. The south. It’s the side open to the world.”

Mr. Aarons composed himself. “The south is our area of concern, yes. The railroad spur where all the coal cars are waiting is down there. The interstate is down there. People are down there.”

Nerio grunted. “And those Crow assholes. They’re all over the place down there.”

He nodded. She’d told him all about how the arrival of the Crow people had saved the lives of Asher Creighton and his park ranger friend, though he took comfort knowing she’d offed Misha Gagarin. So what if she also lost her husband? He figured it was the price of doing business as a paid hitwoman.

“Nerio, I want to hear from you next.” He forced himself to sound sympathetic.

He looked back to his security leader. “They will attack us from the south,” he said dryly. Thanks to the breakdown in civil society over the past week, his ability to extract ore had been severely hampered. It led to the loss of the rock in Denver, the destruction of the rock in Kansas City, and the pilfering of most of the other pieces spread out across middle America. Over the last three days, Petteri had pulled back all his resources to the rock responsible for destroying Yellowstone. It came to rest on a geological feature called the Pinedale Anticline, a wasteland of dry, rocky flatlands which also happened to be one of the largest natural gas fields in America. Every treasure hunter and mining company within a thousand miles had come to the towns and highway south of his rock. They were coming to take it from him and there was only one direction from which they could do it.

Mr. Aarons pointed to a map spread on the table. “Yes, they’ll try, but we have some advantages. The anticline is here, between the two ranges, and it travels about ten miles north and twenty miles south of us. As you could see when you arrived, there is nothing out there but gas extraction equipment and emptiness. It’s perfect for seeing approaching vehicles. There are only two paved roads, one on each side of this wide valley. We’ve set up checkpoints on both to control who gets close to our operation.”

“Right now, traffic is what’s keeping them out of here.” Petteri knew as much from the hourly reports he’d been getting, but it was appropriate to point it out to the larger team. He looked at his mining chief. “And how long do you need to break down all the rock left?”

The stocky man looked uncomfortable in his button-down shirt. He shifted in his seat to better see Petteri. “Sir, um, we’ve been working around the clock, of course, but we’ve only just gotten all the explosives and machinery we need to properly break the asteroid apart. Before you arrived, there were, um, sabotage events.”

He knew about that. Misha had come and bonked heads to clear out the bad actors trying to stop TKM from getting what was his.

The man went on. “We’re filling up dumpers faster than they arrive. We’re parking them in rows, waiting for orders on where to take them. If we get enough, it should take us thirty-six hours to chip down the rock and get the ore on the rails.”

Nerio stomped her foot. “Enough of this bullshit,” she said in her South American accent. “In thirty-six hours, you’ll be gone. I want revenge on those people for killing my beloved Alejandro. Are you going to let me, or am I doing this on my own?”

Petteri ignored her display. He was going to release her, but the plan he’d been crafting in his head the past three days required Nerio to be good and mad when she was finally sent out to cause trouble. Instead of addressing her, he turned to Dorothy, the quiet young lady who was also his computer genius. “We’ve talked about the loss of all the other dig sites. We’ve talked about how we can prevent the gross devaluation of the ore we take out of this piece on the anticline. What have you come up with for me?”

Her smile was wicked. “You said I could use any TKM resource I desired?”

“Of course.”

She sniffled. Her nose was beet red, as if allergic to the Wyoming air, but it didn’t dampen her enthusiasm. “What if I asked for an asset currently located in space?”

That threw him off his game. He gave her a dumb look, which he quickly replaced with laughter. “Why would you need anything in space?”

She giggled in a conspiratorial manner. “I’ll show you.”

Chapter 3

Old Faithful, Yellowstone, WY

Grace drove her truck behind the cheery red minivan belonging to the family they’d saved at Old Faithful, but it was difficult to care for careless people when everything outside her window was dead.

“This is the worst thing I’ve ever seen.” Grace was heartbroken at how her beloved park had been transformed from a green jewel of forest into a chimney sweep’s worst nightmare. The fire had chased her and the others out of the north end of the park back on day one, but this was her first time seeing the southern end of the vast wilderness. Not only were the trees burned to a crisp, their trunks had been snapped near their tops. Even the mountains were blackened above the tree line.

Asher reached over and caressed her arm until she let go of the wheel so they could hold hands. After all she’d seen and done, her emotions were less on edge than any time during her life, but the warped landscape forced her to fight back tears. She appreciated his concern.

“It’s still burning down here,” she said, when they passed Lewis Lake near the southern boundary of the park. The trees weren’t spitting out flames, but some trunks seemed to kick up fumes, as if groups of hooligans were puffing cigarettes behind them. “And it looks like no one has made any effort to put it out.”

“I don’t think anyone could, Grace,” Asher said in a respectful tone. “They all had to run from it, like we did. Emergency services were probably swamped or gone. Remember that little town we visited on our way to Beartooth Pass? We were the only ones in there.”

She sighed, squeezing his hand before reattaching it to the wheel. “I know. I also recognize no one could have put out a fire this big. I’m still trying to wrap my brain around how much we lost…” Her voice trailed off as they came upon a stopped convoy of burned-out vehicles.

“What the hell?” Asher remarked, looking ahead.

The red van continued into the opposite lane of traffic, which was empty. The driver slowed for a couple of seconds, but his brake lights turned off as he sped up. She figured the father didn’t want his kids looking at what remained of the people still inside the cars. “Ugh,” she blurted, aware of her stomach somersaulting at the sight.

“My God,” Asher added.

“We can’t stop,” she declared.

“No way,” he agreed. “Though I pray for their souls. What a horrible way to go.”

She shivered at how close the two of them had come to the same fate. If they’d been stuck above ground when the asteroid struck, instead of inside the abandoned geyser, they might not have made it.

After they’d passed the sixth burned wreck, she forced herself not to look behind. The forest around them was alien in how there was nothing but tall round stumps, a few fallen trees, and almost nothing else on the ground. “I think the asteroid skimmed overhead here. That’s why everything is burned away.”

Asher was speechless, though he managed to get out an, “Mmm-hmm.”

It took an hour to get out of Yellowstone and through the worst of it. Then they finally saw a bit of green. Fifteen minutes afterward, as more intact trees and bushes appeared, a new mountain range came into view ahead.

“The Tee-tons!” she drawled with relief.

The Teton range of mountains stood to the southwest. They were taller and snowier than the peaks inside Yellowstone and were famous for their picturesque arrangement along Jenny Lake and the flat expanse of Jackson Hole. They seemed to stick out of the earth like a line of pointy daggers. However, the only impressive fact which caught her interest was the existence of lush, green trees at their base, around the nearby lake, and alongside the highway ahead.

“We’re finally out of it,” she finished. If Teton National Park and the town of Jackson were both gutted like Yellowstone, she would have been crushed.

The red van slowed at a police roadblock ahead. When the authorities saw them, they waved the family to pass on through. When Grace arrived, they waved her by as well, but she immediately stopped.

“I’m a park ranger,” she said, wondering if what was left of her truck still showed any of the logo on its side.

“Collecting the stragglers?” the gray-haired officer inquired without much interest.

“Yeah. We came in through the north entrance looking for rangers. Can you tell me how bad the fire is? Did it get the whole park?”

He shrugged. “I think so. We haven’t seen anyone come out of there in days. It missed the town of Jackson, but the shooting star cut treetops and burned the forest to the east of here.”

“And it landed in the south, didn’t it?” She already knew the fragment was down that way. She and Shawn had planned to meet there. However, she sought insight into what the route would be like.

“Yulp. State troopers report it’s near the town of Big Piney, I think.”

“Is the highway open, or did it get messed up?” She figured the falling rock would have taken out the roads where it bounced on the ground.

“No idea. I haven’t heard.”

“Okay, thanks. Uh, what about other rangers? I’d like to link up with them, if I could.”

The man looked over to Asher, as if to confirm they were both rangers. He still wore his NPS uniform, though he didn’t have his hat on. While the officer checked him out, he gave a friendly ranger wave.

“You can check the Teton ranger station. I’ve heard there are a few down there, though I have no idea if they’re the regulars or from your park. I do hope you find them, though. We all lost people in this mess.”

It was a start. “Thanks.”

She drove through the roadblock, heading south. Even if the rangers in the Teton station were from that park, it would at least establish she’d come out of the cold. Someone might be able to tell her who was in charge. From there, she didn’t plan on asking what a new park ranger such as herself could do to help out.

She was going to tell them what needed to be done.

Green River, WY

“So…” Ezra began. “You said your name was Calvin? How did you get mixed up in this?” He was uncomfortable sitting between the driver and the teen girl with the big handgun, but he figured it was better for him if he could glean some information during the ride. They were still in town but heading for the crowded highway.

The skinny Crow man looked over, but instead of answering, he turned on the radio. It was set on an AM station, and the woman talking was literally reading the farm report. He listened for about ten seconds as she listed soybean acres planted, agricultural machinery rentals, and stock prices of fertilizer companies. She also mentioned acres lost due to the asteroid-fueled combination of fires, crop-smothering gray dust, and the torrential rains. It was mind-numbingly boring, but it did tell him one thing: despite the impact of the asteroid pieces, life continued in the prime farming areas of the affected states. That was good for America.

If he could survive long enough to enjoy it.

He turned to the teen girl. “Is this your dad? I have a daughter about your age. Her name is Grace. I came here all the way from Kentucky to find—”

The girl didn’t have time to respond. Calvin Tames Horse tapped the brakes, which got Ezra to look over to him. “Grace? Did you say your daughter’s name is Grace? Is she by chance traveling with a nerdy guy named… I should ask you his name.”

Ezra nodded, glad he’d bought a phone to use on his ride across Kansas, Nebraska, and Wyoming. “Asher. She’s talked about him a lot on our phone calls, but I have no idea if he’s nerdy.” He chuckled, trying to gin up some mutual humor. This was his chance to definitively prove he wasn’t with TKM.

Calvin slapped the steering wheel. “Well paint me a sunset, I think you were telling the truth.”

“I was,” he said, believing he was in the clear.

“Your daughter was sitting in my other truck not too many days ago. They were at Crow Agency, up in Montana. So much has happened in the days since. I drove with my people into Wyoming to catch up to her and my nephew, then that boy stole my truck, wrapped it around a tree, then tried to tell me he was saving your daughter’s life. Crazy stuff, if it really happened the way he said. Anyway, I just saw her again, in fact. She was going to Yell—”

His voice was interrupted by what sounded like a gunshot. The truck lurched to the right. Calvin held on and guided them to the curb. The other trucks pulled behind him.

“A flat,” the driver said with dismay.

“Are you sure?” Ezra asked.

Butch banged on the sliding glass window behind him.

“Can I open this?” Ezra inquired, turning to do so.

Calvin had his door open.

Butch shouted. “Someone shot at us!”

They all froze.

“Really?” Ezra said with confusion in his voice. They hadn’t driven far from the hotel, yet. The two elephant-like spires were on the ridgeline behind the town to their right, though about a mile back. Closer, there were a few businesses around them. A small shopping plaza. A fast-food building by itself. An auto-lube shack. Lots of places to hide. When the next shot came in, it was nearly impossible to know where it came from, but there was no doubt someone had fired a gun.

“Jump!” Butch ordered Haley to get her out of the exposed truck bed.

The sick crunch of metal resonated around him, as bullets struck the right side of the vehicle. That was when Ezra’s brain beat his adrenaline gland with the delicacy of a knee to the groin.

“Oh shit!” he cried out.

Since Calvin was already halfway out of the truck, Ezra grabbed the girl and pulled her toward the driver’s side before she tried to go the other way.

“Hey!” she squealed, surprised at being touched by the prisoner.

His panic made him do stupid things. He let go and tried to avoid looking at the barrel pointed at his face. “Sorry for grabbing you, but they’re shooting at us from that side. We have to go this way.” He slid out the door, hoping she wouldn’t shoot him in the back.

A bullet sliced into the dashboard, sending tiny shards of plastic all over the interior of the cabin. When she saw what the round did to the old truck, she lowered her pistol and scrambled toward him.

“Get out, Fern!” Calvin shouted to the teen.

It sounded as if a war had broken out. They weren’t only shooting at the blue truck in the lead position, there were other shooters laying into the vehicles behind them. As he crouched next to Calvin’s ride, he first made sure Haley and Butch were safe. Fern shoved him a little as she came out the door, making it necessary to focus on what was close to him.

“Sorry,” she said, sounding scared.

He caught Calvin’s attention. “You have to fire back.”

The thin man acknowledged him by chancing a look over the hood. When he came back down, he didn’t seem encouraged. “I would, but I don’t see them.”

Ezra turned to Butch. “What should we do?”

Butch slowly shook his head. “We’re pinned good and hard, E-Z. If we had enough professionals here, I’d say we pop smoke and try to get across the street into some hard cover. But I don’t have a weapon and there’s no way to coordinate with the others.”

Their guns were in the stolen truck, which was being pelted with lead three vehicles back. As Ezra watched, he noted how some of the men fired rifles at the threat, but it wasn’t long before those guys were singled out and hit.

Calvin slapped Ezra on the shoulder as he climbed back into the cab.

“Where are you going?” he asked with shock.

“I’m giving us a smoke screen. Just watch.” Calvin squatted low in the front seat as he started the truck again. Ezra moved back a few feet, not sure what he was planning.

The engine roared to life and the truck lurched, but it didn’t roll away since Calvin kept one foot on the brake pedal. The rear tire squealed and barked a few times, then broke free. It spun in place with a high-pitched whine, forcing Haley and Butch to hop away from the smoky wheel well.

“I’ll be damned,” Ezra said, watching smoke curl under the rear end and immediately obscure the view toward the shooters.

“It’s our smokescreen,” Butch said with admiration.

“I did this to impress the girls, back in my day!” Calvin yelled with pride. He had the tire moving at what seemed like a hundred miles an hour. The engine revved near the redline, creating a billowing pure-white cloud of smoke which reeked of burnt rubber.

Ezra was on the cusp of declaring victory when the shooters targeted Calvin’s blue truck with a vengeance. Bullets pelted off the engine compartment, forcing him to slink lower in his seat.

“Go!” Calvin yelled.

Ezra had picked out the parked cars he was going to have them run for, but he barely had time to get everyone’s attention before the engine sputtered. “Run for it!” he yelled, pointing to where he wanted them to go. He’d sprinted about ten feet when the motor suddenly died, as if a shot had sliced its jugular. The white cloud had nearly blanketed the truck behind them, but once the tire stopped, the plume of cover began to drift away. Ezra turned around and made a snap decision, again preventing the teen girl from going where she wanted.

“We can’t make it!” he advised her.

Butch and Haley turned around before getting too far, as well.

Ezra went over to Calvin. “Can you get it started again? That was exactly what we needed.”

“She’s dead,” Calvin lamented as he drained out of the front seat.

“Maybe the other trucks will do the same thing,” he said hopefully. If some of them could get in the clear, maybe they could find help.

But the other trucks weren’t doing any better than his. One of them toward the back had turned into a raging fire. It sent two men scurrying to get away from it, causing one to be hit while in the open.

“Shit, we’re losing your guys. What do you want to do?” Ezra scanned the avenue. There were a few moving cars, but none were close enough to flag down. Besides, he wouldn’t want to get any innocent bystanders hurt.

They had few good options.

Haley pointed to the truck behind them, which was about two car-lengths back. “There’s still enough smoke to make it to their vehicle. I know it’s all shot up, with flat tires and all, but can’t you drive us out of here on the axles? My dad once told me if I had a flat in a bad part of town, I was to keep driving, no matter if the tire fell off completely.”

“That might work,” Butch added, ready to run into the dissipating smoke screen.

A man next to the second truck cried out. The pair of Crow men had taken cover on the driver’s side. They pointed at the little metal ball that had rolled under their truck and into the lane next to them. “Grenade!”

Time dropped into stop-motion speed. The men moved a foot or two away from the threat, one toward the front and the other toward the back, but it exploded between them. Shrapnel ripped into the nice crew cab Chevy and it sliced both men, tossing them like rag dolls. A black ball of smoke filled the space next to the vehicle.

A rush of air washed over Ezra, and shrapnel whizzed by.

“Down!” Calvin shouted.

Butch had Haley smothered on the ground.

He realized he’d lunged with Calvin to be in front of Fern, too.

Other explosions ripped into the little convoy.

He yelled over the noise. “Smoke or not, we’ve got to get out of here!”

 Chapter 4

Teton National Park Ranger Station, WY

“I wonder what this is all about?” Grace drove down the long parking lot for the Teton ranger station. It was part of a large campground and RV park, so there were dumping terminals, general stores, and camping check-ins along the edges of the lot. However, there were no civilian campers in view. The lot was filled with park vehicles, tree-clearing equipment, and forest fire pumpers. “Why aren’t they out doing something?”

“Let’s find out,” Asher said, pointing to a gaggle of men and women in NPS uniforms standing in front of the log-cabin-themed ranger station.

She pulled up to the group, not caring there wasn’t a parking spot. The engine wheezed and a pulley squeaked on and off, calling everyone’s attention to the state of her Chevy Suburban. It struck her she was about to report in and would have to explain the damage she’d done to park property. Before she shut off the motor, she sat there for a few seconds thinking about it.

“You ready for this?” Asher asked, gently tapping her elbow.

Grace let go of the wheel and pulled out the keys, shutting it down. “Yeah, I came into the lot believing I was in charge and unafraid of anything, but now I think this may have been a mistake. What if they take our truck away? Then I won’t be able to get south to my dad.”

Asher laughed with abandon. “Are you kidding me? No one is going to tell you what to do. Not after what we’ve been through. Not with all that we know.” He flipped from glee to seriousness. “But if they do try to take your truck, they’ve got another think coming. There’s no way we’ll give it up to them, or anyone.”

“Oh yeah. I guess I didn’t think about it all the way through. We’re here to get help and to tell them where to go to make a difference. They wouldn’t threaten us for that.”

“Nope,” he replied, edging away from her.

The rangers had gathered around her truck as if trying to solve a challenge. When she opened the door, it creaked on its hinges, adding one more data point to their analysis of her rig. Voices expressed disbelief it was really a park service truck until a woman pointed to the scratched remains of the NPS logo on her door.

“Damn!” the lady ranger said directly to Grace. “Did you just make it out of the forest fire? Because it looks like you only barely survived the Apocalypse.”

Grace took a few steps and turned around to look at the workhorse. Pockets of gray ash still remained where the rain and wind weren’t quite able to free it. The scorch marks from the flames of that first night might never come off. The dents from the buffalo and the airplane from the hanger in Billings would take some serious body work to repair. And, of course, all the windows in the rear were broken out. Even the wooden screen Calvin had fashioned behind the rear seats had been kicked down by Misha. If someone climbed on top, they’d see the huge bullet holes from Nerio’s machine gun. She was suddenly overcome with pride at getting the machine through it all.

She considered what she should say. Somewhere, deep in her memories, she recalled a training video about proper care of park equipment, and possible fines for misusing park resources. If she said too much, she might get stuck with the bill for the truck. While it was true some of it happened in the process of saving park visitors, the rest was done on her own time.

“I was working at Bridge Bay campground when the asteroid shot overhead. I, uh, survived long enough to get survivors over Beartooth Pass.”

“No way,” one of the men replied. “It’s been snowed in since the beginning.”

She didn’t look for the guy. “I promise you, we made it across. You’ll find park employee Tessa and Chester’s truck on the far side. They almost made it…” She didn’t particularly want to discuss their fate.

“You have news of lost employees?” a man called out from the front porch of the station. It was Randy McTavish, her supervisor. He went on. “Grace Anderson? Is it really you?”

A lifetime ago she was upset at Randy for not trusting her to do a proper campfire talk, but such trivial things no longer registered. While he came down the steps, her mind raced about how to reply. “I survived,” she said dryly.

Randy cut through the gathering of NPS uniforms. He arrived in a pressed and clean long-sleeved uniform shirt, with pristine pine-green trousers. She noticed him give her a distasteful once-over, as if he found her filthy uniform repulsive. She’d rolled on the ground several times over the past week and it showed.

He held out a hand to her. “Welcome back.”

She gripped it firmly. “Thanks. I’d love to chat about where I’ve been, but I came through the park again to find help.”

He held up a hand. “You came all the way through the park? Didn’t they stop you at the roadblocks?”

“There aren’t any. Not at the east gate, anyway. We came through Cody.”

Randy bit his lip. “Dang. They told us there were roadblocks on every route in.”

“There needs to be,” she replied, getting into her old job description for a moment. “We found a family standing next to Old Faithful. Ash and I had to clear them out before it exploded. The water spray isn’t like before. Now it goes up about five hundred feet and it lands on the observation benches. Someone needs to get out there and block it off.”

A grumble of voices suggested no one believed her.

“It doesn’t matter,” she went on, not listening to the doubters. “What I really came here for was to gather park rangers to go with me south to Big Piney. We need to help the citizens of Wyoming and Montana, including members of the Crow tribe I befriended recently, secure the asteroid dig site from TKM. That company is a bunch of monsters. They have to be stopped.”

Everyone had gone silent. A pinyon jay squawked at her from a nearby tree, as if anxious all her friends clear out so it could come down and check for crumbs.

Finally, Randy spoke.

“Is this…your truck?”

Green River, WY

The ambush was being carried out to perfection. Ezra watched as grenades fell on or under the remaining trucks down the line. Two of the drivers attempted to get their vehicles moving again, perhaps thinking the remains of the smoke provided a shield, but the hidden enemy focused on them and riddled the drivers with bullets. Within seconds the only truck without dead people was the one he was using as a shield. He pointed to a burger joint across the road. “We’ve got to make a run for it.”

“No way!” Calvin cautioned. “They’ll cut us down.”

“They’ll blow us up if we stay here,” Butch replied with a waver in his voice, as if neither option appealed to him.

Ezra looked over the lip of the cargo bed. He caught a glimpse of movement in a tiny nail salon in the strip mall. At least one gunman was shooting through the broken window. He figured he was fifty yards away, tops. A run into the street without smoke for concealment would be a suicidal option at such a short distance.

“Maybe we can hold out until the police get here,” Haley suggested.

Calvin chanced a look over the hood, trying to get his rifle into position. An incoming bullet snapped off the metal, less than a foot from the man’s forehead. “Whoa!” he blurted, immediately retreating. “That was a close one.”

Butch took over. “Sir, you’ve got to stay down. I’ll peek out the back. Tell you where to find your next target. Pop up for two seconds, shoot, get back down.”

Calvin didn’t seem anxious to try it again.

Though she had a weapon, the teen girl hadn’t done anything except crouch against the truck. She stayed next to Haley, who was also forced to hold out there. However, when the younger girl saw Ezra, she tried to hand her pistol over to Haley.

“Are you sure?” the blonde woman asked.

Fern nodded, eyes puffy with tears. “I can’t even see.”

Haley took it, but immediately passed it to Butch. For a second, Butch looked over to Calvin, as if to make sure he wasn’t going to get shot in the back, but when the other man nodded, he pointed the pistol toward the hostiles.

The large-caliber handgun was almost as loud as a shotgun. Butch fired three times from his position at the rear bumper, but return rounds chased him behind the wheel an instant later.

Butch laughed. “I made them think twice.”

“What if they toss another grenade?” Haley asked.

“We pick it up and throw it back,” Butch said dryly.

Ezra wasn’t sure if he meant it. Haley seemed to share his confusion.

A man shouted from the storefront, “Hold your fire! We’re coming out! We won’t shoot if you don’t!”

Behind them, the other trucks were out of commission. There might have been someone alive, but they were smartly staying hidden. No one was left to return fire except his group. Ezra couldn’t figure out why no one had tossed a grenade at him, getting it over with.

The five of them looked at each other.

He oriented on Butch. “Well, partner, what do you say? Is there any way out of this?”

“Don’t shoot!” a man said from behind a car on the edge of the parking lot in front of the nail salon. The attacking force had sent scouts into the lot to get close to Ezra and the stopped trucks. They didn’t have much time.

Butch glanced down at his pistol, as if wondering how much it could do against the hidden force. The look on his face suggested it wasn’t going to do much.

Haley pushed herself off the side of the truck. “Maybe they mean it. You think?”

“Surrender?” he asked with disbelief.

She shrugged. “I don’t see what else we can do.”

He sighed, having come to the same conclusion in his head, but reluctant to admit they’d been cornered so completely.

“Dammit, E-Z, there are at least a dozen of them. I’ll fight it out if you ask me to, but I don’t think I could keep the rest of you alive. We should see if they’ll accept our surrender. If they’re going to kill us anyway, I’d like to take a few with me.”

Ezra finished his thought. “But we’ll try to keep everyone alive.”

Calvin readjusted position so he could see them all. “Are we in agreement? Take our chances with them to keep from getting a face full of grenade?”

Ezra and Butch nodded immediately, and Haley added her assent a moment later. Fern nodded her head to match Haley.

“Fine,” Calvin said, seemingly relieved. He turned back to the men. “We surrender!”

The takedown happened in seconds. Men in black trousers and blue tactical shirts ran around the front and back of the pickup truck. Butch put the pistol on the ground and raised his arms with everyone else. Calvin did the same.

More shooters came around to their side of the truck. Soon there were six men pointing rifles in their faces. None of them appeared willing to speak until a new guy showed up near the front bumper. “Hello,” he said matter-of-factly.

Ezra was thrilled he didn’t recognize the man. Though he’d killed mustache guy himself, he’d had nightmares the TKM asshole somehow came back to life and was viciously tracking them down to enact his revenge. The man in front of them didn’t have a mustache, but he did wear a logo on his chest that was almost as big of a problem for them.

The man continued. “We were watching you when you came out of the hotel this morning. Wanted to make sure you made it into your truck and got where you’re going. That’s our job as forward recon for the boss.”

“For who?” Ezra asked, not getting it.

“We work for TKM, of course. We’re here to rescue you.”

Ezra was shocked beyond his ability to voice words. He naturally wanted to disavow any relationship with TKM, but after the murderous attack in broad daylight, he assumed there would be no prisoners. Before answering, he slowly turned to the man he’d been trying to convince he wasn’t a member of that organization.

The look on Calvin’s face suggested Ezra had walked into a new ambush.

Anticline Ranch, WY

Petteri realized he needed to get Dorothy alone if she was going to talk about his assets in space. He was blunt in his assessment of his remaining team members. Individually, he trusted them to stay focused on his final mission to collect the ore from the Yellowstone rock. In fact, he needed them all on the same page for it. However, talking about equipment in space was only for those he trusted completely. Dorothy was about ninety-nine percent of the way toward gaining his trust. He figured it was close enough.

“You were saying about assets in space?”

Dorothy looked impressed. He’d cleared out all the others, rather than take her out alone. She sat next to him, but still spoke quietly, as if the clearing of people had made her recognize potential security threats. “Yes, I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve been trawling through equipment lists of everything you’ve currently got in the great beyond.” She turned her laptop to face him. “That’s when I came across these.”

He looked at the screen. It was a spreadsheet of numerical designations, but he knew what they were. “These are the robotic maintenance drones docked in the stable above the moon. They were supposed to be used as tugs when Tuonela was brought to the moon and the Petteri-2 craft needed to be serviced before going back out toward Mars. However, we didn’t use them, since our craft never stopped at the moon.”

“So, they’re spares, essentially?”

He chuckled knowingly. The fifty-foot space tugboats were spares, but after the unfortunate events of the past week, he doubted any earthbound government was going to risk another rock being brought out of the asteroid belt. Not that it would stop him from trying. Petteri refocused on her. “Yes, for now. Why?”

She clapped her hands. “I knew it! I count fifteen docked at the moon, plus three based around the global space station.”

Petteri nodded. “Yes, the ships are useful for clearing space debris out of the orbital path of their high-dollar research platform. I like to, uh, be charitable to international agencies.” He remembered the press he’d gotten by putting them near the station. On more than a few occasions his team of remote operators had guided the drones to clear out or capture space debris threatening the science facility. It had been his first gold mine. A gold mine of good press.

She smirked. “And each one has the same engine as you used on the Petteri-2?”

He immediately saw where she was going. “Yes. I built using modular systems, so every engine was standardized across my little fleet. Each one is nuclear-powered and equally as destructive as the ones used to blow up the asteroid in the first place.”

“Exactly,” she crowed. “My plan is to gather up your reserve fleet of ships, power up the engines, then drop them on the asteroid bits here on Earth.”

He was aghast. “Nuke them?”

She continued to enjoy the moment. “As Ripley from Aliens would say, yeah. Nuke them from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”

He wasn’t familiar with the movie, but the quote made sense. Nuking was a way to be sure the rocks were taken out. That said, he wasn’t sure how dropping nuclear engines on Earth would gain him anything positive. His voice remained tentative. “Go on. How is nuking these sites going to help?”

She shimmied her chair even closer. “Sir, they’re low yield as nukes go. It wouldn’t blow up more than a few square blocks around them. However, it will accomplish the one goal I know you want more than anything.”

“What’s that?” he asked, knowing her answer wouldn’t be right.

“You said it earlier. You want to prevent all the other companies from cutting into your profits. You want to stop them from devaluing each of the ores to the point of being cheaper than sand. If you eliminate all the other pieces, so there is only this one, it would all be yours again. Hell, it might even be worth a lot more than it was before, simply because people will see it as the last of its kind.”

He leaned back in his chair. She impressed him with her insights into his mindset. All his scheming the past few days was designed to get the ore to market before all the other dig sites could really cut into their treasure chest of ores. Part of that was going to be served by having competing companies fighting over each location; he was keen to ensure those flashpoints remained hot. However, the part he could control was right in front of him. Getting the ore to the trains, getting it to a refinery, then dumping it onto the global markets.

Nuking those sites would definitely slow down the extraction process. It would give him all the time in the world to mine his rock. But still, the risks were insane.

“Tell me, Dorothy, when you came up with this novel idea, how did you intend to convince the world this wasn’t the last desperate act of TKM? If they found out we were talking about this, my company would be ruined.”

She giggled. “Sir, it’s easy. Can you think of anyone from our meeting who seemed a bit unhinged? Someone who might do absolutely anything to get revenge for what those people did to her husband?”

He steepled his fingers at the edge of the table.

“As a matter of fact, I can…”

Chapter 5

Teton National Park, WY

It took Grace ten minutes to explain each dent and scrape on her truck. Randy stood next to her with a pen and clipboard, dutifully logging her escapades as if she’d failed a driving test.

“And you couldn’t have avoided the plane?” he asked in a mocking voice.

Randy McTavish was a lifer in the park service. He was pushing fifty, his receding hairline carefully hidden by his hat, with tired, flabby skin from too many tans. He also had disturbingly pungent bad breath, borne from years of smoking. When he spoke from nearby, she had to move a few feet to escape his dragon’s breath.

“At the time I was more worried about the man who wanted to kill me.”

“Ah, yes, the man who put the bullet hole in your windshield, too. It does seem you have a lot of—” He noticed sunlight coming into the cargo bed from the fist-sized hole in the roof. “Holy shit on a shingle! What caused that?”

She couldn’t stop herself from laughing. The entire process was a joke. A week ago, when he was sitting in the back row of her first solo campfire talk, she’d been terrified of how he would judge her and critique every mistake. Now, after brushing against the wall of the afterlife for so many days, she had no fear of the man at all. Without fear, she realized she held no respect for him, either. “Yeah, well, here’s something I didn’t know. Military helicopters unleash these big machine gun rounds with fiery tracers. One of them came through my truck, nearly hitting my gas tank. Can you imagine what this vehicle would have looked like if that had happened?”

Some of the gathered rangers laughed with her, but not Randy. He gawked at the hole in the roof, then his eyes followed a line to the cargo floor, where the companion hole was located. Since the windows were busted out, it made it easy to see into the back. “What the hell?”

Grace stood on her tiptoes to look inside, though she was certain what had him enthralled. “Those are the guns we’ve been collecting. The big one is Finnish, from World War II.” She’d forgotten the model number Misha had rattled off.

All the rangers crowded around to see it. Many whistled as if impressed, though some also scoffed with obvious disapproval. It had never crossed her mind while she worked at the park, but not all of them were the type of gun-friendly people she’d been with lately. Unlike before, such a fearful attitude could get them killed out in the world.

Randy struggled for words. “You’re leading some type of rebellion. Having this much firepower isn’t normal. It can’t even be legal!”

“Actually,” she began, “lots of people would say I’ve got a nice starter kit, but not a proper collection. As I said, the TKM jerks have hand grenades, helicopters, machine guns, and who knows what else. It’s the reason I came back. We need everyone in the area to gang up on the dig site and take it out.” She didn’t know the military jargon to describe what she wanted, but her point was made.

He wrote some more things on his clipboard, but soon Randy slid it under his arm. After a brief look to the gathered rangers, he cast his eyes on Grace. “I know this has been the most unusual week in the history of our park, and I do appreciate you helping tourists escape the forest fire, but almost every minute beyond that has been wasted on non-park-related activities. Billings. Crow Agency. Denver. You could have gotten yourself killed a dozen times over.” He pointed to the gaping hole in the roof. “And getting yourself tangled with the military is not proper ranger behavior.”

“It wasn’t the military shooting. It was an assassin.” She kept her voice level and professional, though it was becoming clear Randy didn’t believe her.

“Whatever,” he blurted. “Until we get this figured out, and make amends with whoever you’ve harmed out there, I’m going to put a hold on your probationary period. This is simply too serious to allow to go on without some kind of…of…penalty.”

Grace would have to make a serious effort to care less about his threats today, though she never wanted to be a park ranger more in her entire life. As long as he didn’t threaten to put her in jail, she was fine with whatever he said.

She returned to what she wanted. “We can discuss that all later. Right now, you have to talk to your bosses. Get them to organize a force of park rangers. We’re the perfect people to go to the dig site and keep the peace.” She meant take it over but didn’t think it would sound as polished. Randy was already on edge about all the damage she’d caused.

“Talk about it later?” he huffed. “I don’t even recognize you anymore. You were on the path to being a good addition to our team, but this person you’ve become…” He seemed to search for the right words. “You’re more suitable for the Army!”

She smiled, taking it as a compliment, but spoke without emotion. “I’m sorry we don’t see eye to eye on this. Tell whoever is left in the upper ranks about what’s going on down there. I have people you can call to confirm what I say is true. We have to act!”

Randy walked from the rear of the truck to the front, hammering the side panels with a balled fist as he went. “This truck is a total loss. Park it, get your stuff out, and find one of the temporary camp sites. You’re benched, Miss Anderson.”

“Just freaking ask them!” she screamed, coming unglued.

He stopped to face her. “I’ll tell them all right. You don’t have to worry.”

She was aware of the other rangers. Rather than lose her cool and give him a piece of her mind, she simmered a bit, then relaxed. “Thanks. The sooner we get help to our Wyoming friends to the south, the sooner Yellowstone can get back to normal. That’s my dream after the nation gets on its feet.”

Her boss took off his hat and wiped his brow, showing a rare glimpse of his scalp. It seemed as if his hair had retreated two or three inches since their last meeting. It created a moment of sympathy for the guy. He’d shared in the pain of the forest fire, same as she had. The last week hadn’t been easy on anyone.

When he put his hat back on, the connection disappeared. He furrowed his brows. “That truck better be parked by the time I come back out.”

She nodded. “Oh, it will.”

Green River, WY

“I’ll kill you!” Calvin shouted as he lunged for Ezra. Butch made an effort to block the hit, but the thin Crow man was fast. He landed a blow on the side of Ezra’s face, causing him to fall backward. However, before the man could follow it up with a more punishing barrage, the TKM guard cracked the man on the back of the skull. He fell to the concrete as if turned off.

Butch, to his credit, got a leg under Calvin before he hit the surface.

“Stand back,” the guard said in a matter-of-fact tone. “I’ll off these two civvies and we can be on our way.”

Ezra whipped his head toward the girl. She was petrified in place next to the truck.

“No!” he replied. “I know this won’t make sense, but I want to leave them alive. They didn’t know it…” He winked at the girl, hoping she got the message. “But they saved our lives. Now I want to do the same for them.”

“Whatever.” The man picked up Calvin’s dropped rifle and Butch’s pistol, then headed back toward the strip mall. “But a thank you would have been nice.”

There was no way to talk to the girl. A half-dozen TKM men swarmed around them, as if to make sure they left with the prisoners they’d come to free. After a few awkward glances at his friends, he decided the only thing to do was get the mining company men out of there as soon as possible.

Ezra caught up to the guy who seemed to be in charge. “We are thankful. Don’t misunderstand. I guess I’m still in shock at how fast it happened. My name’s Ezra.”

He immediately mentally kicked himself for using his real name. The unique nature of it would make it instantly recognizable to anyone looking for him. He held his breath as they walked…

“I’m Christian.”

“Hey,” he replied, making sure Butch and Haley kept up with him. “We’re wondering how the heck you rescued us so fast?” It wasn’t more than fifteen minutes since they’d been plucked from the hotel parking lot. If TKM was that organized, he was going to have a hard time getting close to the rock to meet with Grace.

Christian acknowledged his question by pointing to the rocky hill behind the town. “We were scouting the highway from the ridgeline. Saw you get ambushed by those locals. We came down to put an end to it. Now we’re heading back to base to report in.”

Ezra looked around, searching for a way out. He noticed people at the far edge of the strip mall, as well as cars waiting far down the roadway. Since the shooting had stopped, he expected them to get closer. Medical people would soon run to the injured and dead from the Crow convoy. There was no obvious way for him to get away from Christian’s men, but he took a stab at it. “You mind if we get back to what we were doing? We’ll have to find another truck, of course, but…”

Christian was an imposing figure at six-and-a-half feet. His ripped chest under his blue shirt, along with his swagger on the battlefield, suggested he was ex-military. He was probably an officer based on his age. “I’m the tip of the spear out here. It was lucky we found you guys, but what the hell were you doing here? There shouldn’t be any TKM left this far out. Unless you’re one of the strays coming in from far away?”

Ezra’s expression lit up. “Yes! We’ve been trying to get to the dig site for days. The traffic didn’t help.” He pointed to the nearby highway, which still wasn’t moving a bit. Absently, he wondered how Christian and his men planned to travel if the roads were clogged.

“You three are either stupid or lucky. You should have been told how to get there without waiting for all these vehicles. No wonder you’re late.”

Butch was about to speak, but Ezra stopped him.

“My friends and I were in some tough spots. We didn’t get any memos, but we’re glad we happened to be where you could save us.” He hated himself for buddying up to the guy. Those men and women lying in the street were his real friends and allies, but he was now committed to appearing an asshole, along with all the other TKM people he’d met. “Can we get our gear from our truck?”

Christian waved over two other serious-looking security guys. “Make sure these three get to that truck over there so they can clear it out. Then make sure they make it back to the convoy. We leave in five minutes. Hustle!”

Ezra had to run to make it to the truck. When he got there and saw all his weapons lying in the back, he was worried the guards were going to say they couldn’t take them, but when they didn’t, he and Butch started collecting gear. He snuck a peek at Calvin and the girl still by the first vehicle. The man stirred on the pavement, suggesting he was coming around. That was good news.

One of the guards whistled using two fingers, getting the attention of two more of Christian’s men. “Hey! Look at all these guns! These guys need a hand.”

“No, we’re—” Ezra stopped himself. He’d been wondering if he could pull a fast one and cut down the two guards while they were separated from the others, but he still didn’t know how many TKM men were around. If there were still guards on the hilltop, they might be watching him through a scope. It would suck to die for absolutely nothing. Ezra laughed to sound friendly.

“We’re going to need as much help as we can get.”

They were trapped.

“You got it,” the guard assured him.

Chapter 6

Teton National Park, WY

Before Grace had a chance to digest her not-so-friendly encounter with Randy, the other rangers crowded around her, anxious to know more details about the damage done to her work vehicle.

“You guys believe me?” she asked, confused as to how they could have such a different opinion of her.

A young redheaded woman stepped up. For a ranger, she looked properly dirty. Her green pants were severely discolored below the knees, suggesting she’d been walking in mud or muck recently. The rest of her uniform was sweat-stained and crumpled. “You’re an honest-to-God hero, ma’am. We heard about you from the people you saved going north out of Mammoth a while back. They all called the park service headquarters telling tales about a ranger named Grace who got them out of harm’s way.”

She scratched her head. “I don’t remember making a big deal about myself. I’m not even sure they knew my name.”

“Well, you told someone your name, and they told others in your group. I’m sure everyone knew it by the time you were home free.”

Grace was still confused. “Then why doesn’t Randy know what happened?” She looked at the woman. “What’s your name, by the way?”

She smiled brightly. “I’m Candice O’Reilly, but everyone wants to call me Candy.”

Asher waved to the woman. “Hi.”

“Nice to meet you,” Grace went on. “By the way, I love the red of your hair. It makes me wish I had red hair.”

“Thanks. Sometimes I wish I was a blonde, like you. That’s how it is, right?” Candy addressed her original question. “You know how it is with the brass. They only see dollar signs sitting here on the lot.” She pointed to the Suburban. “And not an instrument of value in your rescue efforts. He probably gets a bonus each year if the trucks don’t need any repairs.”

She shook her head. “It can’t be that simple. Randy isn’t a total jackass.” It was true, she figured, at least before the asteroid fell. He was someone who made her nervous back then, but it was mostly a result of her being new to the job. Now that she had some miles behind her, she recognized how silly it was to be afraid of anyone in the park service.

Candy shrugged. “You told him your story, and deep down he might even believe it. He said he would pass it on, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up about how he’ll phrase it. He’s probably telling his boss, and his boss’s boss, not to blame him for your swath of destruction.”

Grace walked around the side of her truck, intending to get back in. However, she also spoke to the men and women gathered nearby. “You can see what they did to my truck. Did any of you see or hear of TKM doing anything, uh, illegal, out in the wild?”

A lot of heads shook.

“Crap burgers. I was hoping someone could back me up.”

Candice followed her over to the driver’s door as Asher went to the other side. When she put her hand on the handle, the woman spoke quietly. “Your partner seems nice. Does he work with you up in Yellowstone?”

“Yeah, we’re together,” she said without thinking. Then, realizing it sounded too personal, she added, “At the same station up there.”

Candy smirked. “I wish I had someone like him down here. It’s me and a bunch of women most days. I think Yellowstone sucks up all the good-looking dudes.”

As much as she wanted to share some of her thoughts about how she ended up with Asher, both personally and professionally, she didn’t want to do it there, so she changed the topic. “Oh, you work here in the Tetons?”

Candy nodded enthusiastically, shifting gears smoothly with her. “I started last year. Up until everything went to pot, this has been the best time of my life.”

Grace turned reflective. This was supposed to be her best year, too. She had no regrets how things had gone down over the past several days, but it bothered her how much she worried about the man discussing her fate inside the ranger station. If Randy was going to be such a thorn in her side, maybe she should quit. Then her absence would prove how valuable she was.

“I’m not quitting,” Grace blurted, squashing her counterproductive inner thoughts. Leaving would serve no one, especially her.

The redhead giggled, then whispered. “Of course not. Us girls have to stick together. If you’re going south, I might—”

Randy came out through the glass doors of the station, catching everyone’s attention. People moved to give him room to walk down to the truck. Whatever flaws he had, Grace recognized he was a leader.

“I called the offices in Denver to confirm with them. They want your vehicle impounded. You’re being suspended, with pay, while we sort this out.”

Her shoulders slumped. “So, you aren’t going to help me go south?”

Randy chuckled. “I told you earlier that’s not the mission of the National Park Service. Whatever is going on down there, the police or National Guard can handle it. If you want to stay a park ranger, I suggest you do exactly as you’re told. Park the truck over there, clean it out as best you can, then wait for whatever comes next.”

The man pointed to the far end of the lot where other NPS Suburbans were lined up, then he turned and walked back into the ranger station.

Candy spoke first. “So, what are you going to do?”

Green River, WY

After being “rescued” from Calvin and his Crow allies, Christian and his band of TKM guards had loaded Ezra, Butch, and Haley and all their gear into the back of yet another pickup truck. They’d avoided the busy highway by traveling up a narrow ravine, then over the ridgeline above the town. Beyond there, they drove into…nothing.

“These must be old mining roads or something,” Ezra said as he coughed on the dust of the gravel and dirt track taking them through the hilly backcountry north of Green River. The landscape was riddled with washed-out canyons and low hills, but it was also dry as bone, which made the dust intolerable. “Only a local would know how to get through.”

Butch sat on the other side of the bed. “We can’t make a run for it out here, either. They’d see us for miles.” There wasn’t a tree within sight, and the light scrub on the ground was already browning from the hot summer. The rest of the land was tan, bare rock, as if nothing could grow there. To hide, they’d have to run for miles over open land before they could get up and over one of the rolling hills.

Haley sat next to Butch. She kept her head down, so the dust wouldn’t blow in her eyes. “I’m sure we could get the pair of men in our truck, but you two couldn’t take out the rest. Besides, even if we did kill everyone, I’m not sure we’d find our way out of this maze.” Their weapons had been given back to them, but they were part of a convoy with at least twenty men.

“Sounds like a challenge,” Butch remarked, bumping her.

She looked up and smiled at Ezra. “I just want to get this over with. We’re so close to your daughter. Groups of people are filling the highways and surrounding these TKM A-holes. Can’t they see the writing on the wall, yet?”

In his brief phone chats with Grace, she’d explained her goal of meeting him at the dig site. He wasn’t crazy about the idea of her engaging in a shooting war with a dangerous mega-corporation, but she explained how she was already hip-deep in the conflict. He chose to reveal TKM was on the hunt for him, too, due to his run-ins back in Missouri. They laughed about the irony they faced—the only way out for both of them was to deal a fatal blow to TKM.

But Christian’s men were skilled fighters. They’d been doing recon work in the town, which suggested they weren’t folding up and going home. He never expected to get close to the rock while on TKM’s side, but he wondered if it was an opportunity to get valuable intel for both himself and Grace. “I say we stick with these guys and continue to play dumb. As long as they don’t have an APB out on us, we should be fine.”

Butch acknowledged him. “As long as those Crow people don’t come looking for these jerks to exact revenge for the convoy attack.”

He laughed a little. “Wouldn’t it be funny if we were saved by TKM because they thought we were with them, then we get our heads bashed in by Calvin Tames Horse because he believes we’re with TKM?”

Haley took the bait. “No. No it wouldn’t.”

“I’m with you,” Ezra went on. “It wouldn’t be funny at all. However, we have to be ready to help if an attack does materialize. Our first priority is keeping each other safe, but, if we can, we should be on the lookout to trip up our, uh, new allies.” He bobbed his head toward the driver of the truck inside the cabin.

He tried to stay ready, but the hours ticked by as they drove from one endless, nondescript valley to the next.

He’d never seen a land so empty.

Anticline Ranch, WY

Nerio plopped down at the other end of his conference table inside the ranch house. She immediately put her feet on the table. If he’d been back in his corporate office it might have offended him, but he saw himself as having grown over the past days. He was better able to ignore the little things. Besides, he wanted her to feel comfortable for what he was about to do to her.

Come into my lair.

“Thank you for waiting outside for a short time. I needed to come up with a plan to best utilize everyone’s talents. After having a short discussion with Dorothy, I think I have her on a suitable task. Now I want to set you on a similar path.”

“Honestly, if you don’t ask me to go out and kill someone, I’m going to lose my shit.” She made her fingers into a gun, then shot around the room. “And when I lose my shit, things get messy.”

“Now, now,” he said in a comforting voice, reminding himself it was only the two of them in the room. “I’m truly sorry for how things went for you and your husband. I know the loss is still fresh—”

“It will never be less fresh than it is right now. I’m going to kill everyone who was within ten city blocks of the rail yard that day, starting with your star problem children, Asher and the park ranger.” She pretended to orient on a single point, then fired her finger guns several times, making sounds to go with it.

“I hesitate to use the word excellent, but I’m happy to hear you are eager to continue with TKM. I depend on your skills more than you could possibly know, and, of course, you can count on significant compensation for your unfathomable loss.”

She dropped her feet to the floor. “Go on.”

“Well, as I’ve been trying to convey, nothing about this is ideal. However, we’ll pay you handsomely for the work you’ve already done for us, and I’ll throw in a fifty-million-dollar bonus if you can do a job for me down south. You’ll undoubtedly engage with the same people who harassed you earlier, including, I’d assume, Asher and Grace. As long as you get my job done first, you can do whatever you desire to those who wronged you.”

Nerio flicked her red bangs, seeming to turn serious. “Fifty mil for doing what I wanted to do anyway? You’re a fool, Pete. I would have done it for free. But I’ll take the offer. I’ll also need a few things from the equipment stores…”

He replied immediately. “Done.”

She went on. “I’ll need to know more about my mission before I can say how many of your men I’m going to require.”

“Certainly. Your mission is simple: I need someone I can trust to hold the line at our southern boundary so I can get my ore to the rail yard and onto rolling stock. From there, I can take it to my refinery in western Canada.” He waved her over to his map, which sprawled out on the table about midway between them. When she was close, he pointed. “You’ll be headquartered here, at the rail depot near Green River.”

“And I can kill those two if they show up?”

He turned up his palms as a symbol of openness. “You have my word. Kill whoever is necessary to do your job. We are essentially the police out here. Haven’t seen or heard about a sheriff in these parts since I arrived.”

She studied the map. Their area of operation was inside a wide valley, which appeared as an elongated diamond. At its northern point, there was the forested narrow pass leading toward the mountains and forests of Yellowstone. The western point was the little village of Big Piney. The eastern point, fifty miles across the valley, was the even smaller town of Boulder. The southernmost tip was the industrial rail yard at a soda ash plant in remote Wyoming. The asteroid remnant was in the middle of that diamond shape.

He went on. “As we’ve discussed, there is no way for anyone to hit us from across the mountains to the east and west, and the northern route is almost as barren after all the fires. The enemy will come at us from the south, which is why I want you to manage the defenses down there.”

She licked her lips. “What about your guard dog, Aarons? Why don’t you have him head up this important mission?”

Petteri enjoyed this part. Buttering up his prey, then making them think they were the special ones. He moved away from the table to give her his full attention. “This is painful for me to admit, but my operation has not been the same since Howard died. With the way we’ve lost all the other rocks in quick succession, I need to do everything I can to delay the loss of this one. Each hour I load more ore onto my trucks. Each hour the remaining rock gets smaller. Soon, we’ll have it all. That said, the person I want heading up this important defense has to be someone with experience. Someone who is a known quantity to me. Mr. Aarons has done a fine job so far, but ultimately the person I put in charge of our entire southern flank has to be someone I trust with my life.”

Nerio absorbed what he said for about ten seconds.

Then she smiled.

“How many men can I have?”

He’d snared her.

“How many do you want?”

Chapter 7

Teton National Park, WY

The tall, jagged peaks of the Teton range towered above Grace. Being a park ranger in such a beautiful wilderness had been her dream since she was a little girl, and she’d achieved that goal. There wasn’t much more she could ask for. Therefore, it made sense to listen to her boss Randy. She could unload her truck and go quietly on probation like a good girl. Her dad would eventually catch up to her, probably taking care of all the trouble with TKM by himself.

Her defeatist attitude changed when she turned to face Candice and some of the other rangers. The redhead looked at her with anticipation.

“What?” Grace asked.

The woman had trouble written all over her face. “You aren’t going to take it lying down, are you?”

She was surprised. “What do you think I should do?”

Asher interjected. “Not listen to that guy.”

Candy pointed to him. “Your partner knows. If people need help, we have to help.”

Grace held up her hands. “Wait a minute. It’s not exactly like that.”

“Tell us what it’s like,” Candy urged.

She sighed, unsure what path she was heading down. In her heart, she wanted to ignore Randy, jump in the truck, and go fight the bad guys. But she also lived in the real world. A world where she would have bills to pay. Would need a job. Would need a clean employment record to rise in the ranks. She couldn’t throw it all away because an anonymous woman wanted her to buck the system. After a pause, she looked to the other rangers. “Do you all want to know what’s going on out there?”

To a person, they nodded.

Grace stood in front of her truck, to use it as a prop. “Yellowstone was destroyed by a broken asteroid soaring at treetop level above it. I’ve seen most of our beloved park from the north and east gates, by the big tourist areas, and down to the south gate. You won’t recognize it when you go back.”

She figured they already knew the state of the park, but not the rest.

“What you probably don’t know is Petteri Tikkanen, the head of TKM mining, deliberately brought the asteroid down to Earth so he could mine the ore and make money.”

A few of the rangers scoffed.

“It’s true. Over the past week I’ve dealt with him and his company. I’ve talked to members of the Crow Nation, who barely avoided being defrauded by the mining conglomerate. They’re closing in on the dig site as we speak, trying to deny its riches to the wealthiest man on Earth.”

Asher stood next to her, ready to jump in if she needed it.

“What I said earlier was true. I came to Yellowstone, and now the Tetons, to find help to stop a grave injustice being done in the name of money. Yeah, we’ll help avenge what happened to our park, but the fires are already done and gone. What we need to do now is stop him from cashing in further on our nation’s misfortune. We need to stop him from ruining the next park. The next city. The next state. If he’s not brought to justice, that’s exactly what’s going to happen. Nothing about him suggests he regrets causing all this damage.”

“But he’s part of the relief effort,” someone suggested from the back.

“A lie. Everything the man says is a lie. I’ve been to downtown Denver. I’ve seen how TKM is handling their quote-unquote relief efforts. They’re killing everyone who tries to get close to their precious rock…I saw people die right in front of me for that reason.” She thought of Angela being gunned down in the tunnel.

“People are dying?” a man said from closer in the group.

“By the hundreds,” she acknowledged. “Maybe the thousands, if you add up what went on at other dig sites.” The government had been tight-lipped about sharing news with the public about the many crash sites. She figured it was due to the fact there was nothing but bad news to report.

Grace turned to face Asher. When their eyes locked, her resolve firmed up. After all they’d been through, he would support her no matter what choice she made. At the same time, she didn’t stick with him, fight alongside him, and bring him all the way back to Yellowstone simply to give up. She smiled at her partner, which he returned with interest.

She reoriented on the rangers. “I don’t care if they say I’m in trouble. I don’t care if they fire me. I came out here to be a guardian for the wildlife and scenery which makes this country beautiful and natural. I signed up to care for animals when they’re in trouble. Just like I’d get out of my truck to help a turtle across the road, I’m getting in my truck to remove the biggest threat that has ever set foot in our part of the world. Me and my guns are going south to help my friends bring Tikkanen to justice.”

Someone slow-clapped from the entrance of the ranger station.

“Nice speech,” Randy said. He was flanked by some of the higher-ups in the park service. She didn’t recognize them, but they didn’t look like they were there to support her.

Grace whispered to Asher, “We’re getting in the truck now.”

They split and walked around to their respective doors.

“You’ll see that I’m right,” she said aloud. “The park service can’t ignore its mission to conserve our wild park lands as well as the…site of the fallen asteroid piece. It should be preserved, intact, for future generations.” She tried to appeal to their sense of duty, but it didn’t seem to move them. Even as she climbed in the driver’s seat, they remained stoic and unmoved in front of the station.

The other rangers had made a path, so she and Randy faced each other.

She leaned out her window. “I’ll bring what’s left of the truck back when I’m done. Then I’ll park it in a space for you.”

Randy didn’t run out or try to stop her, which came as a bit of a surprise.

She drove off the lot, always looking back.

“Why isn’t he trying to stop us?” she wondered.

Anticline Ranch, WY

“There it is,” Ezra said with amazement, pointing to the remnant of the crashed asteroid looming above the flat terrain a few miles away. The remains of the alien-seeming black orb sat in a pile near a small homestead. Huge pieces of yellow construction equipment huddled around the mound, presumably loading it onto dump trucks.

Dozens of cars, trucks, and RVs were parked in front of a single-story shack, as if there were a large house party taking place out in the middle of nowhere. Beyond that activity, a fleet of dump trucks stood lined up in long rows. It appeared as if an army of rock haulers was on standby, ready to carry the ore to some faraway place.

Christian’s convoy went close to the house, but not directly up to it. Instead, the driver of his truck parked near a row of shipping containers. Fifty or more men in blue shirts loitered around the parking lot in front of them, suggesting it was a staging area for TKM guards.

As soon as the truck stopped, the earth rumbled underneath them. Smoke rose up from the far side of the fallen asteroid as a huge excavator dumped its load into the back of a dump truck. “Looks like they’re making progress,” the driver said as he got out, talking to no one in particular.

“Uh, yeah,” Butch replied.

They had a few seconds alone as they gathered their weapons and whatever gear they could put in the pack. A pair of helicopters took off from behind a low ridge beyond the dig. It seemed complex and well-organized. Ezra nudged Butch. “What’s your military training tell you about this situation? What the hell have we stumbled into?”

Butch let out a fatalistic chuckle. “E-Z, I don’t know what to tell you. This is the kind of stuff spec ops guys dream about. We’re inside the lair of the bear.”

“And the momma bear is going to find us,” Haley said with open worry.

“Don’t lose your cool,” he advised. “As far as anyone knows, we’re legit TKM employees. If they ask for ID, we’ll say it was all lost in the attack back in Green River. We can tell them a grenade destroyed our bags.” It was a ruse that would work for a short time, but if TKM did any serious digging, the truth would be revealed.

“I’ll be looking for how to get us out of here,” Butch went on, probably to comfort Haley.

“Good man. Haley, you stick with Butch. He’ll keep watch.”

“What about you?” she replied.

“I’m going to keep watch on Butch, who will keep watch on you.”

She smiled weakly. “Then I’ll keep an eye on you, too.”

“It’s a plan,” he said, straddling the side of the pickup bed. When he hopped down, Butch tossed his pack to him. By the time they all had feet on the ground, Christian strolled by.

“You three, follow me. I’ll get you settled in.”

They had no choice but to fall in behind him and the other guards from the convoy. On paper, those men rescued them, so he tried to smile and be friendly to avoid suspicion. At the same time, he carefully studied the camp, always mindful of how they would get out.

The shipping containers were offices. A couple had been left open on the ends, allowing him to see cramped nooks filled with computer chairs and terminals. A generator hummed close by.

“This reminds me of Iraq,” Butch volunteered, loud enough for Christian to hear.

“Yeah,” the leader replied over his shoulder, “the only thing we’re missing is the sandbags and berms, though we’ve had offers from some of the union guys who want to protect their men at the dig site. Boss doesn’t want anyone to get too comfortable. He wants this done, bing, bam, boom. No screwing around.”

“Where can we stay?” Ezra asked, praying he would point them in any direction except the one he was walking.

“I have to get you in front of my chief. We expended quite a bit of ordnance freeing you guys. I want to make sure it all gets logged properly, including all the people we rescued.” He pointed back to them.

“Right,” Ezra replied in a dejected tone.

Christian slowed to get a better look at him. “You don’t sound very appreciative. Should I have let them take you away? Let them possibly kill you? ’Cause your attitude makes me think I made a mistake risking my guys in an effort to bring you back.”

Haley stepped forward, purposefully wiping her sweaty brow. “I’m grateful as hell you picked us up, as are these guys. He’s just tired. We all are. At the risk of sounding needy, we’ve spent hours in the hot, dry dust of those back roads. Is there anywhere we can go to clean up, get a drink, that sort of thing?” She smiled at the guy and brushed her hair back over one shoulder.

It did the trick. Christian’s focus went entirely to Haley, as if he’d only noticed her. “Of course. Where are my manners? We have a temporary bunkhouse set up by the RVs. You’ll be able to splash your face and freshen up. I’ll make sure you get some food and water.”

He eyed Butch and Ezra, as if they were less palatable than their traveling companion. Then he spun around and led them on.

They were headed into the crowded area in front of the containers.

There was no turning back.

Chapter 8

Jackson, WY

Jackson, Wyoming was famous for its city park, which sat in the middle of the swanky ski town. The park was one tiny block, but at each corner they’d put huge archways made out of hundreds of elk antlers. Normally, tourists would stroll the sidewalks and visit the nearby shops. Grace had been there a couple of times when off duty from work. It was one of the towns closest to Yellowstone. Today, there wasn’t a person to be seen.

Asher gestured beyond the park toward the living pine forest at the base of a nearby mountain. Patches of brown and black cinders dotted the lively green, but the burn hadn’t reached any closer to Jackson. “The fire almost made it here. I guess they evacuated to be sure.”

It was disheartening to see. Jackson was a large population center, as Wyoming cities went. Since she’d struck out with the rangers, she’d hoped to find volunteers there. Possibly even someone from the police force. Anyone, anywhere, who could help her strike back at TKM.

“I may have made a mistake.” She’d stopped in the middle of the street, next to the antler arch of the public park. The stoplights continued to cycle through their colors, but no other cars were around to use them.

“Are you kidding me?” Asher replied with mock surprise. “I was led to understand you were perfect in every way. Making a mistake is not what I signed up for. At. All.”

She recognized what he was trying to do. “Stop. You know what I mean. We came all this way while waiting for my dad to arrive. I would have been better off spending the last three days on the side of the highway in southern Wyoming, waiting for him to pass.”

“He might not even be here, yet. Then you’d have wasted days of time, like you feared would happen if you stayed with Shawn’s people. Besides, we aren’t through with Jackson. Maybe everyone is at the southern part of town, or they’ve been cleared out. We found the evacuated rangers. Maybe we’ll find these people.”

“And do an equally lousy job of convincing them?” She hated to get down on herself, but she’d expected—

“Oh, crap,” she exclaimed. A park service truck drove toward them from behind.

Asher turned in his seat to look back. “Is it your boss?”

“That would be our luck, right?” She laughed, knowing they somehow got tangled in the worst situations. It would be a fitting end to be hunted down by the same man who’d been with her when the rocks fell from the sky. It would certainly bookend her adventures as a ranger on the run.

He looked at her expectantly. “Are you going to sit here? Why aren’t we gunning the engine and getting out of here?”

She shrugged. In the mirror she counted ten or twelve trucks. Even if she wanted to do them harm, it would be an impossible escape. She’d been able to get to Jackson without a map, as she’d been there before. However, she didn’t know where to go from there. She’d have to spend some time looking at maps. Escape would be impossible when she didn’t know which way to flee. “Let’s see what he wants. If this is it…then this is it.”

At first, he looked disappointed, but his demeanor changed. “I’m with you no matter what.”

They locked hands for a brief moment, then got out of their doors. She’d brought her hat with her, giving her something to do while she waited for Randy to pull up.

When the truck stopped, she was surprised to see Candy.

“Grace!” the young woman called out, parking her truck a short way behind Grace’s battle-tested Suburban. “I have a surprise for you!”

Did he send Candy to trick her into going back? Was that some style of management tactic she hadn’t yet learned?

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

A long line of pristine park service trucks pulled to a stop, one behind the next. As she waited for Candy to answer, rangers poured out of the doors. Most of them appeared armed, which made her realize she’d left her weapon in her ride. If they’d come to disarm her, they could get it out of the truck themselves.

Candy hustled to get all her friends together. She waved them closer, smiling and acting excited. The other rangers also seemed relaxed and willing to have some fun. Grace couldn’t understand what was going on, but she was pleased no one pointed guns in her direction. That was a nice switch.

Finally, the redhead got everyone close to Grace and Asher.

“We’re here as volunteers to help you two.”

Anticline Ranch, WY

Haley’s tactic of asking for a place to freshen up led to a few minutes of peace for the trio. Ezra and Butch were given clean black pants and the TKM blue tactical shirt to go with it. When dressed, they’d look like all the other men out in the staging area. Haley, however, had been given a blue shirt but also a black skirt.

“Why do I get a dress? We’re in the friggin’ outback, here. Who dresses like this?” Before Ezra could stop her, the young woman walked out from between the pair of shipping containers serving as the dressing area.

“Where’d she go?” Butch asked a moment later, stunned.

“I have no idea,” he said, unsure if he should chase her. After not seeing her, and not hearing gunshots, they used the opportunity to change into their new clothes.

Before too much time had passed, she came back, flaunting an attitude. She’d dumped the skirt and now had a pair of long black trousers over her shoulder.

“Are you all right?” he asked with sincere curiosity.

“They have an entire semitruck stocked with uniforms for all the people coming in from the airport. I simply took the one I wanted, not the one they chose for me. I asked a lady standing around about it, and she said the skirts are designated for secretaries, computer operators, drivers, and other support personnel. Screw that!”

He laughed good-naturedly. “You know, being in the back lines might have been beneficial to you. Who knows where we’ll have to go as part of this outfit?” He tugged at his new shirt. “We’re at their mercy right now.”

She turned around and yanked off her top, which made him and Butch immediately turn away, too. Haley talked like it was no big deal. “I go where you go. You’re getting me back to Liam and Victoria, don’t you forget. Whatever else happens, I want to stick with you guys. Hopefully, it means we walk out of this dump in about five minutes and go back to our own people.”

“Glad you’re sticking with us,” Butch joked, half-turning around.

“Eyes!” she barked.

“Oh, sorry.”

“I’m going to change my pants real fast,” she went on. “Then, I say we march to the nearest truck, pretend we own it, and get the hell out of here. Does that sound smart?”

“Works for me,” Butch answered.

When she was done, she walked over to them. “You boys are good. I’m used to changing fast back in the gym. Sometimes situations come up and you can’t go all the way back to the locker rooms, you know?”

He and Butch both shrugged.

“You guys wouldn’t understand. Anyway, I’m ready.”

Ezra pointed to the far end of the containers. “We should go that way. We can sneak around the gathering out there, then make our way to one of the thousand vehicles parked close by. Should be easy.”

They’d gone about six feet when Christian appeared at the entrance. “Hey, you three! This way.”

Ezra dropped his head in despair. Speaking quietly, he added, “We have to be patient.”

The three of them followed the leader to where the others had gathered. As they walked across the open space next to the containers, they had to make way for an unremarkable middle-aged man in a fancy business suit. The guy walked and chatted with a tough-looking, bearded guard. A burly six-man security detail stayed in their wake, watching for trouble as they went. The man in the suit was immediately recognizable to Ezra. Mr. Tikkanen was the richest guy in the world. His face was everywhere.

Tikkanen barely gave them a glance.

Ezra kept his head extra low once he realized who the man was. He caught up to Christian, keeping Butch and Haley near him as well.

“Uh-oh, why is she here?” Christian said in a low voice.

Ahead, a woman dressed in black stood in front of fifty or sixty TKM men and women. She’d gotten the disorganized gaggle into ten rows and they stood at attention in front of her. Christian guided Ezra to the rear of the formation, then walked toward the front.

“We’re doing the opposite of getting out of here,” Haley whispered barely loud enough for him to hear.

He chuckled quietly. “Let’s stick around for a few. You’re the one who said women were assigned to secretary duties and whatnots. TKM seems to be stuck in the 1970s. Let’s see what passes for their modern thought.”

The woman at the front spoke loudly. “The time has come to go to war!”

“Oh, crap,” he blurted.

Anticline Ranch, WY

After leaving Nerio at her staging area with all the other hired help, Petteri and his entourage walked a short way in the brutal heat of late morning. Besides the initial deluge of rain and snow after the asteroid impacted the Earth, there hadn’t been a drop of precipitation in almost a week. The ground was parched and dusty, which was why he kept his tour short. When he returned to his office inside the ranch home, he stomped his feet to shake off the dust.

One of his traveling secretaries waved him in. “Sir, I have your drinks ready at the table.”

“Thanks,” he replied half-heartedly.

He got right to business with his security chief. “It looks like the advance team really put this place together nicely. I’m particularly impressed by your clever use of the shipping containers.”

In addition to using the popular cargo boxes for their office space, Mr. Aarons had placed several of them at the southern edge of the dig site. His team had cut slits in the far walls so three or four men could stand inside and fire rifles at approaching intruders. Standing out there, Petteri felt as if he were managing a medieval castle, not a twenty-first century facility. The rest of the tour was more mundane, with a stop at the RV park, a quick look at some of the natural gas equipment scattered around, as well as the water and fuel tankers parked nearby. They’d also driven a golf cart past the always-hopping dig site itself.

“Thank you. We’ve used these containers everywhere we needed a ready-made strongpoint. It saves a lot of time, so we don’t have to dig foxholes in the hardscrabble ground around here.”

“Smart again,” he added.

“We could always use more, though. The trains were bringing them in, but now the tracks are clogged with coal cars. I know we need those, too, but these are so good for defense, I’d love to have about a hundred more. We could especially use them at our outpost in the north.”

“Tell me about that. Have you gotten into Jackson? Is it abandoned, as we thought?”

Mr. Aarons nodded. “Oh, yeah. It’s totally empty. We think a lot of them went to Salt Lake City, but we can’t be sure.”

Petteri strode over to the map on the table. The route to the north was a two-lane road which went over a low pass and then down a long river valley until it reached Jackson. If there was no one in the town, there would be no one to worry about in the entire northern flank of his operation. Other than Jackson, there was nothing but mountains and roadless territories around them. It reinforced his decision to send Nerio to the south.

“But you have one of our checkpoints up there, right?”

“Definitely,” Mr. Aarons said with pride. “But it has been pretty quiet there. However, if anything of any interest does happen, they’ll report it to me immediately.”

They both studied the map a few moments longer. “This is great work,” he assured Mr. Aarons. “You’ve got the north sealed and have some great defenses here at the dig. The east and west are mountains, so unless they call in the military, I don’t expect much to come from those directions. Nerio is taking charge of the railroad terminal to the south. I feel comfortable with this.”

“I concur,” Aarons replied.

“Then I think we’re good here.” He’d been walking and talking for the past forty-five minutes. He was ready to move on to other matters. “Unless you have something else?”

Mr. Aarons hesitated.

“What?” he pressed.

“I want to show you some preliminary intel I’ve just received.” Aarons pulled out his phone and flicked it to a video player. “Here.”

Petteri watched as the screen played what looked like a store’s surveillance camera footage. Two men and a woman pushed a cart full of guns through the front door.

“Now, watch this.”

The scene changed to a night-vision view of the same three people on a boat. The perspective shifted, as if the videographer had his camera fully zoomed. Gunfire was all around, suggesting the person shooting the video was in the middle of the people firing at the boat.

“Finally, this.”

The last video showed the trio standing in a hotel lobby, tiredly talking to the proprietor.

Mr. Aarons knew the right questions to answer in advance. “The first video was taken in a place called St. Charles, Missouri. The second one, the next day, was immediately before we lost the rock in Kansas City. Number three was from last night. They were staying in Green River, which is about seventy miles to the south of us.”

“Who are they?” For some reason they looked very familiar, as if he’d seen them on the news or in a magazine.

“You better sit down, sir. This man”—he pointed to the older guy—“is the father of the park ranger with Asher Creighton.”

“He’s coming here?”

“It looks like it,” Aarons replied.

“Why the hell is he coming here?”

Aarons stayed serious. “We don’t know, sir. We’re trying to find out for you right now. We’re also putting a significant number of analysts on the task. We’re listening in to local cellular towers to see if we get a hit. If they’re around, we’ll soon know about it.”

“All right. Good work. Stay on top of it. Is that all?” He was now anxious to end the meeting and take a load off.

“There is one more thing…”

“It had better be good news.”

Mr. Aarons steeled himself. “It’s not, sir. I’ve been informed through side channels that Mr. Stricker has announced his intention to come here this evening. I think he wants to check us for environmental regulations or some such nonsense.”

He knew he hadn’t heard the last of the man. Even after giving away his Denver dig site, plus the one in Kansas City, Petteri expected the government would have an insatiable appetite for his rocks. He’d hoped to collect the last one over the next few days, but if Stricker was coming…it would be a long time before he could relax.

“Let’s discuss our options,” he sighed.

Chapter 9

Jackson, WY

“Aren’t you afraid for your jobs?” Grace asked the arriving park rangers.

Candy stood at the front. “The park is toast anyway. We’re not sure we’ll even have jobs. There’s all kinds of rumors about being furloughed, reassigned to other agencies, and the like.” She leaned in. “These are strange times we live in.”

“You can say that again,” she declared.

“So, if you need help, you’ve got it.”

Grace called everyone to get closer. “Is anyone from around here? Where are all the people in Jackson?”

A female ranger got her attention. “Evacuated. There’s a tent city over in Idaho, set up by that Petteri Tikkanen guy. His company moved everyone out to keep them safe.”

“Safe, my butt,” she mumbled. Louder, she went on. “Okay, if we’re not going to find help here, I need the best way to get to Boulder, Wyoming. It’s where the rock is supposed to be.”

A middle-aged man stepped forward. “I have family down in Rifle, Colorado. I sometimes drive by Boulder when I visit them. I can get you there.” He pointed south. “We’re already on the correct road. Stay on Hwy 191 through the gap in the mountains. It will take you right there.”

Grace worried she was going into another Beartooth Pass situation. If they were heading for snow and icy roads, she’d be more than happy to take the long way. “Is there snow up there?”

The man flashed a friendly smile. “You won’t even know it’s a pass. The highway goes up a long hill as one valley transitions to the other valley south of here. I guarantee there won’t be any snow.”

“Me and Ash had a bad experience on a pass.” She looked around, wondering how many came from Yellowstone. “Did anyone know Chester, who worked at Mammoth, or a woman named Tessa who worked as a dispatcher with the park police?”

A pair of ladies raised their hands in the back.

“I’m afraid they died on Beartooth. They helped me rescue those people, but they got caught on an icy road and didn’t make it.” She spared them the details about how another vehicle fell from the cliff and crushed them.

The enthusiasm tempered a little, but she didn’t want to fake how dangerous traveling with her might be, so she tried to keep to the facts. “Thank you, everyone. I don’t know what’s down there, but I do know TKM can be extremely dangerous. Like helicopter-raining-machine-gun dangerous. I’m going to take it slow and try to keep us out of trouble until we know what we’re dealing with.” Misha had taught her to constantly be on the lookout for the enemy, but if a professional like him had been injured in battle with TKM, how would these civilians fare?

It seemed to be enough of a speech. She counted the numbers as best she could as the rangers went back to their vehicles. There were now seven trucks, including hers, and about twenty park agents, including her and Asher. Well, Asher had an asterisk by his name. No one besides her knew he wasn’t really an official GS-5 government employee.

Once back on the road, it was easy to follow the signs for Highway 191. They were in a beautiful valley bracketed by big hills in the foreground, and tall mountains beyond those. Small farms dotted the flat bottomland and they soon joined the fast-moving Snake River winding its way through the valley. For a few minutes, they didn’t see any human structures at all. Then, after crossing a bridge, they came to a little junction with about three houses, two businesses, and one giant roundabout.

“The guy said to stick to 191,” Asher began, “which means we have to go that way.”

She looked where he pointed toward the left. “Why are they there?”

A group of pickup trucks were blocking the highway where they needed to go about fifty yards up the road. A lone man stood in the middle of the roundabout, making it clear they had to exit to the right rather than the left. He wore a blue denim shirt, which at first reminded her of TKM colors, though it wasn’t quite a match.

“Get ready,” she said dryly. “We’re not going to turn back already.”

Grace didn’t go around the circle to meet the guy on the roadway. She went directly into the paved middle and parked a few yards short of the man. Her eyes searched the guy for weapons, but he didn’t seem to have any on him.

She opened her door. “Cover me.”

Asher seemed surprised. “Really? Are we in a cop show now?”

Grace paused, feeding off the sarcasm in his voice. “Would you rather I cover you?” It probably made more sense on paper, since she had more experience with a rifle, but he wasn’t a real ranger, either. She intended to use her ranger powers to figure out why the road was shut down.

“No, I can do it. I’ll be ready for anything.”

Satisfied he wasn’t going to come out after her, she walked toward the man. He might have been about sixty-five. His hair was mostly gray, and his face was thick with wrinkles and sad eyes, as if he seldom smiled.

The other trucks in her group had parked at various places behind her. Some in the middle of the roundabout as she’d done. A couple pulled to the shoulder on the outside of the circular road.

“Hey!” she said with cheer, tipping her damaged hat at the same time. “Why is the road closed?”

The man didn’t seem to be with a road construction crew, the police, a utility, or any county or forest service department. Any one of those would have fit into a roadblock on such a well-trafficked highway in western Wyoming.

“Forest fire, miss. Our being here to warn you will save about an hour’s round-trip time. The road is covered with downed trees up near Rim station.”

“At the top,” she said with skepticism.

He nodded seriously. “Trust me. You don’t want to get tangled in the mess. They brought in some Forest Service crews with giant cutters, but it’s going to take some time. Probably a few days. Maybe a week.”

“Is there another way around? We’re heading for the town of Boulder.” She motioned back to her friends.

The man shook his head. “Nope. Boulder is in the burn zone, too…”

The middle-aged park ranger who knew the way to Boulder spoke up at that moment, as if he’d been standing close, listening. “What about Big Piney? We can stop there, if we have too.”

The lone man glanced back to the other trucks before continuing. “That, uh, wouldn’t be good, either. Everything beyond this point has been wrecked by the asteroid. Burned to a crisp. We, uh, I, recommend you go back the way you came.” He pointed toward Jackson.

Her fellow ranger stood closer to the man. “You’re not telling us the full story, are you? I happen to know from my drives through Boulder there aren’t two trees rubbing together within ten miles of there. No forest fire could shut the place down.”

The man in the denim shirt took a few steps back, looking pissed. “I just say what I’m told. If you want to find out, drive the long way around.” He pointed to the right-hand route out of the roundabout. “But you can’t go this way. It’s dangerous.”

Behind him, and behind the vehicles, she noticed at least one man leveling a rifle in her direction. The potential shooter was back behind his black truck, but even at fifty yards she clearly recognized the distinctive TKM blue of his shirt collar.

Her stomach turned to stone.

Anticline Ranch, WY

Ezra listened in horror as the woman in black spoke about what those assembled were expected to do.

“Some of you may be trained soldiers. If you are, help those around you. If you aren’t, listen to what your skilled coworkers are telling you. I’m not in the military, either, but I’ve been working security for Mr. Petteri for long enough to know the basics.”

The men and women in the formation glanced nervously at each other. A young man in front of him turned around toward Butch. “Can you believe this lady? We’re not fighters.”

“Amen, brother,” Butch replied.

The woman went on. “But don’t worry. Our mission is not to get into a fight. It’s to present a unified front for those who would steal this rock from TKM. As long as they know we’re here and ready to defend corporate property, the terrorist scavengers will stay back. So, don’t look at yourselves as soldiers. Consider yourselves deterrents.”

Ezra strained his neck to get a better view of the woman at the front. She was dressed in tight-fitting black leather pants and a similarly fitted black long-sleeved top. Her long red hair was down below her shoulders, instead of pinned up off her neck. He figured she must be dying in the midday sunshine.

Getting back in his spot, he leaned toward Butch and Haley. “There is no freaking way we’re getting anywhere close to this nutjob. Be ready to split as soon as I give the signal.”

He refocused on the woman. As soon as she finished her speech, it would be his cue to move.

“In addition to being a force designed to ward off anyone who’s prone to making bad decisions, you all have access to the finest weapons and technology. TKM has generously provided this so you can protect our mutual investment.”

Her words seemed to calm those present.

“Remember, each of you will be a millionaire when this is over. All for the lowly task of standing in front of some company equipment to ensure no one damages it.”

Many of the men in the lines started to fist-bump each other.

Haley leaned in. “Hey, do you think they’d give us a million bucks for being here?”

He chuckled. “I could rebuild my house, and then some.”

Butch joined in. “I’ll buy you a new boat, E-Z.”

He noticed the woman was now inside the formation. “To give you a sense of the scum we’re dealing with: my husband and I were attacked by them. Savagely. Viciously. Without mercy. I managed to kill one of their men, a Russian infiltrator, but I lost my dear husband in the melee.”

A few heartfelt apologies came from the gathered people.

She lapped it up, walking deeper into the line. Closer to Ezra. In fact, he locked eyes with her as she strolled right to him.

“My husband was tall, dark, and handsome, like the saying, uh, says.” She fumbled her words a little, but never stopped peering at Ezra. “And you could be his brother.”

“Me?” Ezra blurted.

She smiled, further making him uncomfortable, before gesturing toward Butch. “Yes, you, though this one is much taller, a little darker, and almost as handsome, though he’s obviously smitten with his girlfriend.”

Butch seemed as unsettled as he was. He shifted his weight from leg to leg.

“In case you didn’t hear, my name is Nerio Torres. Nice to meet you…”

“Ezra,” he revealed, wishing again he’d started this adventure with a fake name.

“Ezra,” she echoed. “Well, Ezra, I noticed you because you aren’t hard to look at, but I couldn’t help but notice you seem to have trouble listening to me. You and your friends back here aren’t going to be the troublemakers of the class, are you?”

“No, ma’am,” he said sheepishly. The last thing he wanted to do was mouth off to her. After listening to her speech about being her foot soldiers, and after getting an up-close look at her disturbingly attractive outfit, he was certain her goal was to lure men into doing what she wanted with or without the million bucks. For her to single him out was dangerous.

“Good. I want you three to ride with Christian. He’ll make sure you get set up properly.” She smiled at Ezra. “And he’ll take extra special care of you.”

For about ten seconds he appreciated the irony about how she’d lost her husband, while he’d lost his wife. In almost any other situation on earth, those two things would give them a common point of discussion. Maybe it would even help with the healing.

Damn, I’m commiserating with Mrs. Hitler.

“We really don’t need—” he tried to say.

“Nonsense,” she barked, stepping behind them. “We leave in five minutes. The trucks are loaded. All you have to do is stow your fancy guns and climb aboard. When we get to our new position, I’ll check on how well Christian was able to set you up.”

When she finished, she kept walking until she was gone. Christian broke the formation from his spot at the front, which set the three of them in motion.

“Nice one, ladies’ man,” Butch snorted.

Haley broke into sing-song. “Someone’s got a new girlfriend.”

Ezra shook his head in despair. “This would all be hilarious if we weren’t being marched off to war. Don’t you kids see that?”

Butch didn’t miss a beat. “Yeah, that’s why we want to get in our last few jokes.”

Chapter 10

Hoback Junction, WY

Grace wasn’t able to warn anyone before the man behind the blockade fired his rifle. “Get down!” she yelled, the instant after the booming echo.

The gathered rangers dove behind their trucks, as did she and Asher. A second bullet cracked against her front bumper. The next skipped off the concrete below the license plate. She slid back toward the greater safety of the steel wheel, but also watched the man she’d been speaking with. Unlike everyone else, he seemed unsure which way to go.

“Over here!” she shouted to him.

Another round blasted out from the roadblock, making her wonder if the shooter was trying to hit the exposed man standing in the roundabout.

“Hurry!” she yelled with encouragement.

As he scurried toward her, another shot exploded. The bullet impacted her truck, causing it to rattle, though she had no idea where it had struck. The greeter hurried by, head low, breathing like a locomotive from his short sprint.

“Was this roadblock a setup?” she asked him.

“No! I swear! It’s real. A guy came along and said we have to keep everyone and their mothers from going up that road because it was dangerous as hell. We saw the smoke up yonder, so it made sense. No one gave us any grief the past few days. Not until you all showed up.”

“The guy wasn’t with TKM by chance, was he?”

The nervous man nodded. “He did mention that name.”

She faced Asher. “So, we’re already running into their security teams.”

“Why doesn’t he have a blue shirt?” Asher asked.

It was a good question, so she turned back. “If you’re with TKM, why aren’t you dressed like them? They usually throw money at guys like you to get them to join their little army. Uniforms seem to be part of the deal.” Seeing the blue shirts would probably have been enough for her to keep driving, rather than engage the men at the roadblock.

“Money? Ha! None of us got paid to be here. We’re doing our civic duty to help warn people. Brock was the only guy who said he was with TKM, but he didn’t have money. He’s more of a guy who just hangs out with us…and buys the beer,” he added with a bit of sheepishness.

She went for the obvious question. “Well, is he the one shooting at us?”

“I don’t know. My brother and a couple of other guys I know are up there. I doubt they would shoot me. I mean I owe them a few bucks, but—”

She held up a hand. “I’m sure that’s not it.”

“TKM knows we’re here?” Asher said under his breath.

“I’d bet anything they have flyers of us with Wanted Dead or Alive written on the front. Or maybe they’ve got orders to shoot any park rangers they see.”

Asher looked concerned. “Then we have to warn these people.”

“I know.”

The shooter let loose several shots in a row, plinking rounds off different trucks. Each hit was a reminder how much Randy was going to fire her, but she had to shake off the worries of her personal problems and concentrate on getting the other rangers out of there.

“We have to organize,” she said. “Fight back. At least distract the guy so we can drive away.”

Asher seemed ready. “Just tell me what to do.”

She scooted to the rear of the truck, which allowed her to see other rangers hunkered down behind their vehicles. It was dismaying to see few of them carried their weapons. She and Asher each had fancy-looking AR-15s given to them by members of the Crow Nation. They also carried service pistols in their law enforcement belts. Like the others, she’d failed to bring out her rifle when she got out. It was in the cargo bed with the other guns.

Grace imagined herself in a movie. She took off her hat, lifted it to the edge of the blown-out rear window, sure the films had it wrong. Before she had it all the way up, a jolt yanked the straw hat from her hand, sending it sailing to the ground. “Shit!” she blurted, recoiling in shock at the same time. Her head had been closer than she’d planned to the path of the bullet.

Asher laughed nervously. “Grace! Why?”

Her heartbeat felt as if tiny nukes were blowing up in her chest twice a second. To cover her embarrassment, she grinned and tried to convince him she knew that would happen. “I wanted…to see…if he was looking.” She caught her breath before continuing. “If not, I was going to reach into the back and grab a rifle.”

“That was pretty dumb. Why don’t you climb in through the front seat, then slide into the back?”

Grace wasn’t thinking clearly, but she cut herself some slack due to the bullets. However, she also came to the sensible conclusion mimicking the movies could get you killed. “Yeah, I guess your way would be safer.”

She was determined to get a rifle and fire back. If she could make the shooter put his head down for even a few seconds, it would give people a chance to retreat from the conflict. What she wanted most was to get her ranger allies out of there. It would be much harder to convince them to follow her if someone got shot at the first sign of the enemy. Belatedly, she admitted it would be equally hard to get them to tag along if she was holding up hats and having them shot out of her hand.

Grace couldn’t help herself from checking around to see if anyone besides Asher knew of her mistake. As best she could tell, the answer was no.

“Let me move by the door,” she said, strategizing a more sensible maneuver.

After switching places with Asher, she prepared to go inside the truck. However, more guns fired from the roadblock. It was as if they knew her plan and were trying to stop her from acquiring any weapons. “I’m going,” she exhaled.

“Wait!” Asher pleaded.

They listened as the cacophony of sound hit a high point, then started to fizzle out. In seconds, there was no shooting at all. They crouched next to the truck, frozen in the act of listening. The quiet stretched into half a minute.

Grace still hadn’t moved. She was either wasting precious time while the bad guys reloaded…or they had something more sinister than gunfire in the works for her.

TKM was capable of anything.

Anticline Natural Gas Field, WY

“Well, we’re moving up in the world. We’re now inside the truck.” Ezra spoke to Haley, sitting next to him in the crew cab, and Butch, who sat in the passenger seat, since he was too tall to sit comfortably in the rear row.

Christian was behind the wheel. “Yeah, sorry about that ride in, guys. Pretty brutal out there with how dry it’s been.”

Ezra checked out the dust plumes billowing from the trucks behind them. They wafted eastward over the flat, featureless terrain.

“We’ll get out up ahead. There’s a small checkpoint on the bridge over a creek.”

“There’s water out here?” Butch remarked.

“A little. Once we get south of the creek, there isn’t water, or any bushes, trees, or shrubs, until we get to the soda ash plant.”

“Soda ash?” Haley asked.

“It’s some kind of chemical they dig out of the ground in these parts. I’m not real familiar with it, other than they mine that and natural gas in this flat valley.”

“Don’t forget they also take out valuable ore from the rock,” Ezra added helpfully. He’d already seen the rock being picked apart, but he found it interesting Christian didn’t consider the asteroid a valuable local resource.

“Oh, right. They’ll mine it until we can get it all out of here.”

“Out of here?” Ezra repeated.

Christian turned halfway around. “Weren’t you listening at all back at camp? Nerio is traveling with us to shore up the southern defenses. We’ll be guarding the rail head so the rock can be shipped out. They’re taking it all to get it away from the civilian terrorists trying to steal it.”

The dusty gravel road revealed a slight depression in the landscape up ahead. A small stream flowed underneath a fifty-foot span of bridge. However, once Christian took in the scene, he picked up his CB radio mic. “Look alive. The roadblock crew isn’t there.” He slowed the truck as he rolled to the edge of the span. If there were guys guarding the place, they weren’t visible.

Butch pointed out his window. “There’s a wrecked truck down in the creek.”

“Come on, let’s check it out.” Without waiting, the driver shoved his door open so he could hop out.

It gave them a minute of privacy. “What should we do?” he asked.

Haley sat back in her seat. “I say we stay here. Pretend like we didn’t hear him.”

“All of us?” Ezra joked. “You think he’d buy that?”

Butch opened his door. “I wish we could stay, Haley, but he knows we heard him. We have to get out. Have your weapon ready. If we see an opportunity to ditch these fellas, we should take it.”

“I’ll be watching,” Haley said with determination.

Ezra got out, too, trusting his military man’s instincts.

The three of them followed Christian until they stood at the downstream side of the bridge. The wide, slow-moving creek was about ten feet below the road surface. A late-model pickup truck had been pushed over the steep bank and was submerged up to the tops of its tires. No other evidence of people could be seen.

“Who do you think did this?” Ezra asked, wondering if this was the scene of a legitimate accident, or, more likely, someone who was against TKM had come along and taken them out. He feverishly searched the horizon for any hint of friendlies. Their lives would depend on making contact with them, so they didn’t become targets along with the rest of the TKM convoy.

Other men had come out of their trucks. Some spread out along the bank of the stream, perhaps searching for any survivors or looking for possible threats. They’d gotten about fifty yards on both the up and downstream sides of the bridge when a distant thump came in on the wind.

A man on the stream bank fell over the side.

“It’s an attack!” Christian screamed. He looked at the fallen man for a second, then pointed downriver. “It came from that way!”

Men fell to the rocks or went prone on the roadway and bridge. He ducked behind the metal guard rail. Every gun quickly turned to a point downriver, though Ezra wasn’t able to see anyone there. The stream had very little cover and was uniformly straight for a few hundred yards. The only possible place a shooter could be was…

“The rise down there. He’s on the reverse slope of the rise down the river!” Christian aimed his rifle and fired across the water. After a few seconds, he looked over to Ezra. “Why the hell aren’t you firing?”

Some of the men on the bank began shooting, almost as if they knew Christian was about to chew them out. However, Ezra didn’t feel like shooting at his friends out there.

“We will,” he lied.

For a few seconds, he, Butch, and Haley fumbled with their guns behind the guard rail, desperately trying to seem intent on preparing their weapons, but equally adamant they not bring them to bear. Christian went through his whole magazine and they still hadn’t gotten in the game.

The leader spoke calmly as he switched mags. “Did I ever tell you about my buddy? He’s a Russian. He told me how his commanding officers used to stand behind their soldiers and shoot anyone who wasn’t pulling their weight or decided to retreat without orders.”

Ezra winced at the dressing down. His rifle had been ready the whole time, so he was able to bring it to bear almost immediately. He aimed at a cloud in the general direction of the shooters, then popped off a bunch of rounds.

“Yeah! Lay it on!” Christian hollered.

He was exposed lying on the open highway, with nothing besides the thin metal rail to protect him, so he didn’t dare get up. Friends or not, if they saw a person stand up in the open, the people out there were going to shoot him. While Christian was busy firing, and while he legitimately fumbled with a replacement magazine, he advised Haley and Butch to fire at nothing, as he was doing.

Two more men dropped dead. One of them was on the bank of the river, but the other was about ten feet to their right, a short way from the bridge span. As he watched blood spurt from the man’s face, he instantly realized it wasn’t a matter of rooting for one side or the other. The only thing of importance was getting out of the way of the bullets.

“Come on, we’re getting behind the trucks,” he said in a loud voice to Haley and Butch.

Christian overheard him. “Didn’t you understand what I said about the Russians? Take one step and I blow out your belly button from behind.”

Anticline Ranch, WY

After finishing their security discussion, Petteri had finally sent Mr. Aarons on his way. He sat alone in his office for a long time thinking about what to do next. Stricker was on his way to his final dig site. It wasn’t for a social visit. He had to decide if the time had come to do away with him, and he knew the perfect person to ask for a second opinion.

He picked up the phone.

Dorothy came in five minutes later.

Petteri had her sit down. “How are you doing on arranging our, uh, malfunctioning spacecraft?” With him, in his command center, there was no small talk.

The young woman smiled knowingly. “You don’t have to play coy, sir. We’re dropping your spacecraft to kill people and protect your investments. It’s sad, but the honest truth. It would help me do my job if we didn’t pretend.”

He took a hard look at her. She’d been there for him in the worst period of his company’s existence. She’d heard things she shouldn’t. The girl had even suffered a visit from the very person he was preparing to ask about. Maybe she was owed some truth.

Maybe.

“I’m glad to hear you’ve got your situation well in hand. Keep me abreast of any changes in status. I especially want to know when we can expect the fireworks.”

She acknowledged him with a small nod.

“The reason I needed you in here at this moment is more personal than orbital spacecraft.”

She sat up in her chair. “Oh?”

“Mr. Stricker is coming to pay us a visit.”

“Oh, hell no! I’m not doing that again.”

“I normally wouldn’t ever ask so much of my employees—”

“I know we run things fast and loose here, but if you put me in a room with him again, I’m tempted to call HR and file for sexual harassment. The way he looks at me is not appropriate for the workplace.”

He had to dance around her discomfort.

“In business, sometimes we must make sacrifices for the greater good of the company. He represents a direct threat to everything we’re doing here. I need my best person on the inevitable negotiations.”

On hearing the words, she leaned far back in her chair. “What do you have over that asshole? How do you keep getting your way with him? When I talked to him, he definitely seemed scared of you.”

There was his opening. “It isn’t me. It’s you. You negotiated the hell out of him back in Denver. That’s what I want—”

“I’m not a little girl. You can’t play me. There’s something you have on him that makes him so pliable. Even I can see it.”

Petteri was willing to overlook the interruption. He wasn’t lying when he said he needed her. If he went into a room alone with the portly secretary, he was likely to get angry and act in a way he would later regret. Perhaps giving her all the facts would convince her how important she was. On the other hand, explaining it all to Dorothy would give her a piece of leverage he wasn’t quite ready to give up.

His unusual indecision was short-circuited when Mr. Aarons ran in.

“Sir, sorry for the intrusion. We’ve got word from Nerio’s task force they’ve come under fire from suspected militia infiltrators.”

“Is the attack happening at the railhead?” He’d assumed that’s where the enemy would strike.

“Negative. They’re ten miles north of it. They took out a checkpoint and have pinned down our convoy heading out to reinforce the southern boundary.”

Petteri clenched his jaw for a few moments. Ten miles north of the railhead meant they were ten miles closer to him. He’d already done everything in his power to take the pressure off his dig site. Dorothy was even dropping nuke-powered engines to back him up. All he had to do was let his military experts herd his civilian guards so they could head off the domestic terrorists coming to steal his ore. He’d expected the fight to start in a few days, when both sides were ready, but it appeared to be kicking off early. He needed to trust his experts’ defensive measures as well as the military-grade hardware at their disposal. He also had to trust his own master plan.

He relaxed his jaw. “Mr. Aarons, get the dump trucks ready to move.”

Chapter 11

Hoback Junction, WY

Grace decided to play it safe and stick to the side of the truck as if glued to it. As long as there was no shooting, her people were safe. As the seconds dragged by without the men at the roadblock shooting, she took it as a win.

Asher removed his hat and held it so it would be spotted above the hood. He flinched, expecting it to be shot out of his hand. However, no gunfire came down. After several more seconds of conspicuously waving it around, he lowered it, nodding to her.

She flashed him a sour look. “After the grief you gave me?”

He cocked his head. “I did? I don’t recall.” Sarcasm was paved over his words.

Grace reached for her fallen hat, playfully grumbling under her breath about her exchange with him. Picking it up and brushing it off, she almost admired the small new holes from where the bullet had punched through. It was now nearly as beat up as her truck, which seemed proper and fitting. By the time she’d slapped it back on her head, a man called out from the roadblock.

“You all can come out! We’re not going to shoot!”

“As if that’s going to make us come out,” Asher remarked to her. Despite their playful antics, she and Asher were deadly serious about staying hidden from danger.

The man huddling with them recognized the voice. “Carson, is that you?”

“Rocky? You okay?”

The man breathed out. “You two are fine now. You can trust Carson. He won’t shoot me.” He scrambled toward the front of the truck, ready to stand up.

“But what about us?” she pressed.

“Oh, he won’t shoot you, either.” Before getting clear of the vehicle, he seemed to think twice. He yelled toward the roadblock. “You won’t shoot the rangers, will you?”

Carson replied. “No, we just had to shoot Brock. He’s the one who put you in danger. I’ll meet you in front of the roadblock, all right?”

The next few minutes were a tense dance as both sides seemed unsure if they should trust the other. She and Asher took the lead, always staying close to Rocky, but eventually they reached the blockade of trucks. They were greeted by a hunched-over elderly gentleman who looked like a bearded mountain man unwillingly summoned from his remote cabin.

“Carson,” Rocky said to the new fellow.

Carson held up his hands to show they were empty. “I’m real sorry about all that. We didn’t know Brock was going to start shooting. He’s been here for days and never gave a clue he would come unhinged like he did.”

“Rocky said that guy was with TKM, right? Why do you think he was shooting at us?” Grace was unwilling to reveal she’d had run-ins with the mining company a few times in the past.

The mountain guy answered while he pulled at his long beard. “As soon as we saw park service trucks stop at the roundabout, he called in on his radio like he normally does. His company is doing some recovery work up in the burn zone and they apparently like to know who’s down here. Anyway, he stayed on the radio until you talked to Rocky for a while. I think he was sending video back using his cell phone, too. We heard a man talking on the other end, but then a woman came on. She said you two were to be shot on sight.” Carson pointed at her and Asher.

“We tried to talk him out of it, especially because Rocky was already downrange and talking peaceably with you. He seemed to agree, which is when the rest of us let our guard down. Once he started shooting, it took us some time to…take him out.”

“You shot him?” Rocky asked with surprise.

“He shot us,” the man answered, finally looking over to Rocky. “He shot at your brother—he’s fine—but he killed Mr. Finch. We had to shoot the bastard before he killed us all. Funny thing is, he had this tucked inside his shirt…” He held up a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills.

“Dang,” Rocky exclaimed. “How much do you think that is?”

Grace knew what the money was for. “He was supposed to pay you guys for your service here at the roadblock. TKM is shoving this kind of money at people all across the area. However, it looks like he planned on keeping most of it for himself.”

“He bought you off with beer,” Asher added, relaying what Rocky had mentioned earlier.

“I’m going to check on my bro.” Rocky jogged off, toward the roadblock.

“I’m so sorry you lost a man,” she said, truly meaning it.

Carson slung his rifle. “We’ll move the trucks and let you through. We didn’t want none of this trouble. Brock said we were protecting people from wandering into the dangerous burn zone. I guess he lied.”

She offered a bit of what she knew. “There is trouble up there, but not how you think. TKM is doing all this so they can steal the ore from the asteroid which caused all the destruction around here. They tried to do the same thing in Denver.”

Carson seemed skeptical. “Denver, huh? We heard there was a big accident there.”

She chuckled. “Is that what they’re calling it? We were there. It was more like a war. TKM killed a bunch of people so they could escape with dump trucks of rock.”

“Really?” he asked.

“Yep. And that’s what’s going to happen here if we don’t do something about it.” She pointed back to the rangers, taking a moment to wave at Candy, who waved back. “They’re coming with me to see how we can help. I know you’ve been working with TKM, but we need all the help we can get.” She didn’t think they could be too happy with the company who’d shot up their friends.

Carson scratched under his chin, as if the beard was bothering him. “I don’t know about them others, but I’ve got nothing else going on. The fire took out my home. I’m living out of my truck. I guess I could help you, especially if there’s more money to be had.” He held up the wad of cash.

“Do you know the way up there?” She pointed behind the parked trucks blocking the road. She already had her ranger guide who knew the way, but it was a convenient excuse to give Carson a role.

“Sure. I live about ten miles in.”

Grace nodded. “We’ll line up the convoy and let you lead the way.”

“I’ll be ready,” Carson said, heading back toward his men.

When he was gone, she spoke quietly. “I have to admit I’m getting worried about all these people. I mean, watching over you was one thing…”

Asher jumped right in. “I gave you a few gray hairs, didn’t I?”

She was horrified to think about having gray hair at her age, but she tried not to let him see her fear. “Yeah, and if I have to manage twenty other Ashers, my whole head is going to turn white.”

Asher got serious. “No one is like me.”

She squinted, searching for the sarcasm. When he saw her processing in her brain, he let her off the hook. “I can be honest about it. I mean these people know which end of a gun to point at the bad guys. These rangers don’t trip over their own feet. That guy Carson looks like he could build his own wooden fort. Unlike me, you aren’t going to have any trouble at all with them.”

She smiled, thankful for the dose of reality, but her phone meowed a few seconds later. It was a number she didn’t recognize, though that was standard these days. “Hello?”

A man spoke. “Hello, Grace Anderson. A friend gave me this number when he heard you were spotted in Hoback Junction.”

She put her hand over the mic. “Holy shit! Someone knows we’re here!”

“Who?” he asked.

Grace shrugged. “Some guy.”

“Well, find out,” he insisted.

“Who is this? Are you with TKM?” They were the only people who could possibly have the resources to track her.

“I can’t say who this is. My position is too delicate to risk telling you. However, I am willing to admit I do work for TKM, but don’t hang up because of it. I’m here to help you link up with your friends.”

“And how do you know who my friends are?”

The man coughed. “I’ve got access to TKM’s surveillance reports. I’m looking at one right now. It says you engaged with TKM leadership in some town called Rawlins. Oh, and you killed the husband of a Nerio Torres. That put a nice target on your back.”

“What are you saying?” she asked, not liking the implication.

“I’m saying you need a friend on the inside. I have my reasons for helping, but don’t bother asking who I am. You can either listen to me or not. I’ll tell you we dispatched a surveillance drone to your location. I take it our operative at the roadblock is dead?”

“Does it matter?” she shot back.

“Not at all. As long as he’s gone, the way is clear for you to approach the Anticline dig site from the north. You should know, however, your friends have arranged passage over the mountains to the east. I believe they are part of the Crow Nation. I think the Wind River tribe is with them as well.”

“Shawn Runs Hard?” Grace said without thinking.

“Is that his name? He and his friends are going to come out near the town of Boulder. Perhaps I can make contact to warn them, though the mountains make it almost impossible to communicate via the cell network.”

“Warn them about what?” she said with frustration. The man was dangling information in front of her, but not explaining the context.

The guy paused for a few seconds. “They’re walking into a trap.”

Anticline Natural Gas Field, WY

“We aren’t going anywhere,” Ezra said slowly. “But we should back off this bridge to find some cover.”

Christian seemed to think it over. “If you get up, it will make you a target. Look at some of these other idiots.” He motioned to the blue shirts on the jagged bank of the stream. Every so often one would hop up and run back for the trucks. They’d get shot at, and often struck, by the enemy shooters. “Besides, do you hear that?”

Ezra strained to listen. There was a guttural thumping sound on the wind, like…

Christian answered himself. “A helicopter is inbound. Do you think we would travel ten feet in this desolate country without air cover?”

He had to hand it to the TKM organization. They came to play.

The shooting continued for a few more seconds until those men down the creek realized an aircraft was lurking above. When the shooting stopped, Christian pointed. “There they are!” He looked down his rifle’s scope, carefully aiming at two men far down the waterway.

Ezra looked toward the men too, wishing there were some way he could help them. He quickly deduced, however, any assistance on his part would immediately be met with hostility, possibly death. He couldn’t fight his way out of the group of fifty men already wary about being picked off from afar, but he did have one card to play.

“Let’s get the hell out of here!” he shouted at an obnoxious level of volume. Butch and Haley hopped off the ground, as he did, and they backtracked toward the truck.

Christian was startled. He looked up from his scope, then to Ezra. “Damn. You’re not military, are you?”

“No,” Ezra replied before Butch could answer. “Look, sorry about that. I hope you don’t go all Russian on me. We’re only dumb miners who hate getting shot at.” He was proud at how he’d distracted the man enough to stop him from shooting.

“Bah,” the man replied.

After their exchange, Christian again looked into the scope. “Crap. They’re going into some rocks. I’ll never pick them off at this range, but I don’t think they’ve got an ice cream cone’s chance in hell of escaping.”

A muted-green-colored military helicopter roared over their heads, going directly for the shooters downstream. Ezra rooted for them yet recognized there was no chance the men could get away. They did have some cover from ground-based shooters while among the rocks of the stream, but they had no protection from above. The rest of the land was so flat, they’d never be able to shield themselves from the aircraft. It was the reverse of what had been happening to Christian’s men.

The military chopper hovered for a few seconds, then the pair of guys clearly put up their hands in surrender. However, the person in the cargo area of the aircraft opened up on them with a machine gun. The incoming fire kicked up waterspouts as rounds fell around the two guys. The staccato rhythm of death drifted in on the wind a couple of seconds later.

“Turned ’em to paste,” Christian bragged.

“That was horrible,” Haley murmured.

The leader wasn’t the least disturbed by what happened. “Yeah. It was. Serves the bastards right.”

Christian finally got to his feet. He looked briefly at Ezra, then strode around to his driver’s door. Before he got in, he admired the helicopter looping wide around his convoy.

“This is nuts,” Haley said as she got next to him.

He nodded. “We only have to stay alive until we can get out of here.”

“I have an idea, E-Z,” Butch said, also sidling beside him.

“Whatchya got?” he drawled.

Butch spoke quietly. “When we get in the truck, but before he starts us moving, we off this Christian guy, then we drive this entire convoy into the opposite direction. Before they realize their leader is toast, we’ll peel off and leave them behind.”

He blinked with surprise. “This might be the greatest plan I ever heard…but there is a problem with it.”

“Yeah?” Butch challenged.

After establishing where the helicopter had gone, he motioned for Butch to look there. “No matter how brilliant the plan is, we won’t be able to outrun that thing. Once they know we’re killers, they’d be on us like stink on a diaper.” He shuddered thinking about the dumpster filled with diapers.

The big guy tried to rally. “There has to be somewhere we can hide. We can’t go with these maniacs into battle against people who are supposed to be our allies.”

Ezra sighed in despair. They’d been victims of circumstance since the sun came up. He was anxious to take his fate back into his own hands. But he was right about the helicopter.

It wasn’t yet time to fight back.

Chapter 12

Hwy 191, WY

Grace called her rangers together at the roundabout. A few of the men from the roadblock came over, too, though they stayed toward the rear. She figured there was still some mutual wariness after the shooting incident.

“Thanks for sticking around. I know you heard me explain the dangerous things I’ve seen over the past week, but I can tell by the looks on your faces you never believed all of them could be true.” She waited for acknowledgment. Candy smiled at her, lending support, so she could go on. “This roadblock sums up what we’re fighting against. TKM uses lies and deception to get what they want. The man who shot at us tricked the rest of these folks into guarding this highway. I’m sure we’ll find more like him when we go over the pass and into the next valley. The head guy himself is over there, no doubt planning a suitable reception for anyone who might call him out on his bullshit.”

Grace watched as determination built in the eyes of the rangers. If they hadn’t run away screaming at the sight and sounds of bullets whizzing by, she didn’t think some bad language would do it. However, she wanted to be brutally honest with them. “Beyond this point, if you follow me up and over the pass, each of your lives will be in danger. I can’t stress that enough.”

She imagined Randy in the back row, critiquing her every move. He would have been screaming at her to not endanger his workforce, especially off park property. Would insurance cover any injuries? Were they still technically rangers, or did Randy fire them as they drove away? Maybe the pink slip message was on her phone already.

Candy raised her hand.

“Yes?” Grace pointed to her.

“I believed every word of what you said back there. I mean, look at your truck. Those bullet holes didn’t magically appear there. I’m sure it’s going to be dangerous, and to be honest, I don’t really know much or care about TKM, but I do want to help you get free of them. It sounds like your boyfriend is the only one who believed in you, up until now.”

She shifted on her feet, uneasy at the term boyfriend. If they thought she was in this for the wrong reasons…

Candy pressed on. “You just tell us what you want us to do and give your best effort to keep us out of the path of those bullets, and I’ll follow you wherever.”

Many of the others expressed similar sentiments. A few shouted in support. Most pumped fists in righteous solidarity. One or two, however, made their excuses and walked away. It hurt a little to be abandoned, but she didn’t let it drag her down too far. Most of the rangers stayed. Rocky and Carson volunteered to join up as well, adding their personal trucks to her team.

“Let’s saddle up!” Grace was anxious to get all twelve vehicles on the road before Shawn reached TKM’s trap.

Once inside the truck and moving, she and Asher could finally speak privately. She went first. “I know what you’re going to ask. Can we trust him? The answer is no.”

“Who? The guy on the phone or the guy from the roadblock?”

She thought about it. “Both. We can’t trust anyone on the outside to do the right thing anymore. TKM can convince regular schmoes to do whatever they want. They seem to be controlling the flow of news.” To prove her point, she turned on the radio. There was the usual religious chatter on the AM dial and the low end of the FM scale, but there was almost nothing in the way of news. What little there was focused on the recovery efforts in other states. Nothing was said about Wyoming.

Asher listened to her scan stations for a short time before replying. “I assure you, I don’t trust anyone, but we have to go with what the guy said on the phone. If the Crow are on the move, it has to mean Shawn is with them. That’s where we need to be.”

“Are you getting a signal on your watch? We could use a detailed map of the area.”

He tapped his phone. “I don’t have a link, but I can pull up a map.” Asher was fond of his expensive techno-watch. After a few adjustments, he asked, “What do you need to know?”

“How far do we go on this route before we reach the pass? Rocky said it hits a high point, then goes down into the next valley. We—” She stopped midsentence as they came around a bend in the road. The green forest continued on both sides of the road, but it turned black about a quarter of a mile ahead. “Sheesh. We have to pay attention on this highway.”

Asher looked up the information. “We’re heading for a pass weirdly called The Rim. It’s about thirty miles from Hoback Junction to the top.”

“Thanks. It gives us a goal to shoot for.”

They went into a section of dense pine forest, though most of it had been stripped bare by the fire. The dead trees stood where they were, charred and looking like empty scarecrows. Some had fallen next to the highway, but few were tall enough to reach the shoulder.

“This is going to make a fascinating area to study someday,” he remarked. “Especially where the asteroid touched down and bounced. As a geologist, it will give me a lot of aspects of this disaster to examine.”

“As a park ranger, it will give me a lot of new material to work with, too. Assuming they don’t can me.” She laughed it off.

“I guarantee they won’t fire you. Not because of the truck, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“No,” she replied. “I laugh at how simple it seems in retrospect. The worst they could do was fire me or dock my pay. But now…” she pointed behind them, “we have people willing to risk their lives for us.”

“Not only for us. They’re doing it for the same reason you are. There are people who need our help. TKM is a risk to humanity. They’re killing indiscriminately. That’s worth risking lives to stop. Plus, after your little pep talk, they all came willingly.”

“I guess that’s true,” she admitted.

The next fifteen minutes were like going on a tour through a spent blast furnace. Everything was blackened and charred, even the road itself. As they neared what looked like the highest point of the roadway, the tops of the trees were broken off. Many of the taller trunks had been tipped over, all pointing in the same direction.

“This is it,” she said, looking ahead and remembering the directions. “The Rim, as you called it.” The pass was barely more than a rise in the highway. Burned trees were everywhere. A large burn pile sat behind a gravel parking lot off to the left. A cheery metal sign hung above the ruins, declaring the wreckage a gift shop called Rim Station.

They drove a short way down the other side before arriving at a lot built for tourists. The stripped and broken trees gave them a view they wouldn’t have had otherwise. Two giant mountain ranges dominated the scenery ahead, one on each side, as if a giant were cradling the desolate, wide valley in its petrified arms. A junction a mile down the road had three different routes. The main highway continued south along the eastern range. A second paved road went to the southwest, near the base of the western mountains. A gravel road also went straight out into the middle of the valley.

There wasn’t a tree to be seen beyond the patch near the lot. Some of the land was burned. Some was torn to shreds, suggesting the rock did, in fact, bounce through. The line of destruction pointed to the south, close to the gravel road, about midway between the two ranges.

“Rocky was right,” she announced.

“What?”

“There are no TKM men around here. They must all be guarding their expensive asteroid down there.” She pointed to the bare lands ahead, well beyond the three-way road junction.

“Right where we’re going,” he sighed.

Anticline Natural Gas Field, WY

The next hour reinforced Ezra’s belief they had to escape from TKM. Christian drove the convoy to the soda ash plant and guided them to a modified shipping container sitting in the open. Even without being told, it was obvious to him what they’d been brought there to do.

Christian pointed to a puke-green container. “You three can have this one.”

Ezra didn’t move. “You want us to stand in there? It’s going to be hotter than hell.” The sun was out in full force and it was already past noon. The metal shipping container looked like an invitation for Hansel and Gretel to climb in the oven.

The leader was unmoved. “I’ve got fifty other guys to deal with. You all get loaded in there for your own protection. There’s a bucket for squatting on. A five-gallon water jug for drinking. You can step out to get cool, but be ready when the shooting starts. Close the doors. Stand at your gun slot. All right?”

The man wasn’t really asking. They had no choice in the matter. It was like the Russian had said: get in or be shot in the back for running away.

Christian guided the others to the nearby boxy containers. The second they were clear, Haley and Butch were all over him.

“What are we going to do?” Haley asked.

“What’s the plan, E-Z?” Butch added.

He’d been cautious up until that point, but there was no way he would participate in what was obviously going to be a bloodbath. Without stepping foot inside the cargo unit, he looked back at the soda ash plant. The place was about a half-mile square, with a complicated mixture of large metal buildings, overhead conveyor belts, and storage tanks. It formed an archipelago of human design within the expanse of craggy nothing all around it, save for hundreds of rail cars waiting on the dual line of tracks leading up to the facility. The defense consisted of twenty or thirty shipping containers placed in an uneven semicircle facing the gravel road to the south, like the plant’s shield.

When he turned back toward the green tin can, dust wafted in the distance. The others followed his eyes when he didn’t say anything.

“Oh no. We’re out of time,” Haley said in a quiet voice. She hung close to the outer door of their makeshift fort, as if anxious to get behind cover.

Butch shifted so he was next to Ezra. Together, they watched the smoke plumes grow. They showed up in several places, as if vehicles were on the move across the rocky wasteland in multiple places. “Ezra, you know I’ll fight with you to the end, especially after all we’ve been through, but this doesn’t feel right. Unless they have armor-piercing bullets, they aren’t going to get close to these containers before they’re ripped to shreds. We’re the ones who are going to do the ripping…”

Ezra spoke distantly. “No, we’re not going to do anything of the sort. But we need a plan.” He moved Butch over to Haley, still outside the container. “We have our guns. We’re inside the enemy camp. We’re wearing their uniforms. How the hell can we turn all this to our advantage?”

They stood there for a few seconds before Haley shivered.

“You okay?” he asked.

She motioned toward their empty shipping box. “I was thinking how terrible it’s going to be when our friends walk up to these things and get shot in the face. They’ll be sitting ducks. The only way to shoot back is if they come in from the sides, and the doors are open.”

He scanned the battlefield. Of those he could see at a glance, most of the cargo containers still had their doors open. The twin doors swung outward, providing ballistic protection from incoming rounds except if a truck came at them from the side. The defenders were probably like him and his friends. They would want to keep cool while firing their hot weapons, at least until the trucks got a lot closer.

Ezra saw an advantage. “I have an idea.”

Anticline Ranch, WY

Petteri stayed close to Mr. Aarons as the day wore on. He needed up-to-the-second intel on the attacks, so he could ensure his plans went according to his wishes, not those of the enemy.

“Sir, there is one gravel path through the mountains to the east. As we suspected, the terrorists are using the route to approach Boulder. If they get there, it will put them within striking distance of this rock.”

He wasn’t overly upset anymore. They’d talked about it earlier, and Mr. Aarons couldn’t have done anything more. They didn’t have the manpower to guard every forest road and pathway along the entire mountain range. While he wished they could have put up a fight in the highlands and delayed the enemy force, Mr. Aarons was able to put a mechanical drone up in the mountains to give them an early warning. His security chief had also explained what he’d done to the town of Boulder, giving him some assurance they weren’t losing too much by allowing the intruders to get close to it.

“We’re still good on the west and the north?” he asked. “No problems at the airfield?”

“Everything is solid in those directions and Tikkanen Airfield is humming along,” Aarons replied. “I’ve been told we currently have more flights moving in and out than Denver International would have had, if they were operating normally.”

“There will be many awards given after this is over,” he said calmly. Switching tracks, he went on. “And any news from your analysts about this, uh, Ezra Anderson? Is he working with his daughter to attack us?”

“We’re still trying to figure that out, sir. I did recently receive this from our research.” He handed over a multi-page document which looked like it was created on an old mechanical typewriter.

“What the hell is this?”

“A police report from Rawlins. After Nerio Torres was attacked and lost her husband, I did a little digging to determine what the police knew about the incident. If you turn to page six, you’ll see a line I’ve highlighted.”

Petteri found the passage and read it aloud. “Subject who drove the truck into the tree seemed fazed by the ordeal and was unable to give us his name. However, the subject spoke broken English with a thick Russian accent and appears to have been involved in more than a simple car accident. Investigators are attempting to locate a Russian interpreter, under the assumption he can better explain himself in his native tongue.”

He looked up in shock. “Misha?”

“I believe it is, sir. I’m trying to track him down, but we don’t have many resources in south central Wyoming anymore.”

Petteri absorbed the implications. Whatever else happened, he couldn’t let Nerio know the man who’d killed her husband was still alive. He already had her doing the work required of her. If she got wind of Misha’s continued existence, she’d drop everything and go after him.

“Let’s table this for now, Mr. Aarons. Very good work finding this. No one wants Misha Gagarin out of the way more than I do, but we’re in a delicate phase of my operation. I can’t afford to be sidetracked again. Neither can Ms. Torres. Do you understand?”

Dorothy came in as Aarons saluted. “I understand completely.”

“Very good. Keep up the good work.” He turned to the black-haired woman. “Do you have any news from our reconnaissance assets to the south?”

“That’s why I’m here. The civilians gathered along the railroad and highway are finally attacking.”

Terrorists were pressing in from the east and the south. Nerio was working her magic on the front lines. His hacker employee had set up the mother of all goodbyes with his spacecraft. An outsider might think he should be worried at all the moving pieces, but he ran the largest conglomerate of businesses in the world. He was used to grand complications. In fact, he was elated at how things were playing out.

“It’s time to make them pay.”

Chapter 13

Near Boulder, WY

As Grace looked into the valley, it evoked memories of the old saying she’d often seen characters use in the movies: though I walk into the valley of death….

“This place is a disaster area. It might have been even before the asteroid came here.” Compared to the lush greenery of Yellowstone and the Tetons, at least before much of it was turned to ash, the land sprawling in front of her had never been more than bare rock. The mountain ranges on each side of the valley were snow-capped with gray, ashy snow, and they stood tall above the relatively flat table of land between them. A few paths of green foliage ran along curvy little streams, giving the appearance of veins of a leaf all leading to the stem. From her position at the high point of the valley, she and her friends could see the entire region as it sloped away, though the details became murky toward the horizon, which she figured was about twenty or thirty miles away.

Asher stood next to her. “Do you see the dig site? We should see a big black rock, like the one in Denver. There won’t be any buildings to hide it.”

There were broken trees and divots in the earth nearby, where the rock had bounced, but its final destination wasn’t in her field of view. However, they didn’t need a map to know where to go next.

“I don’t,” she declared. “But Boulder is down that way.” She pointed to the eastern direction, away from the three-way junction.

Rocky walked up behind them. “You’ll pass Pinedale, first. It’s the only town of any substance up in this part of the valley. Population, two thousand. Boulder is next, then there’s nothing until the interstate far beyond.” He pointed to the other highway heading southwest. “Ain’t nuthin’ that way except for Big Piney until you get to Kemmerer about a hundred miles away.”

“Wow,” she said, impressed. “I haven’t seen an area this desolate since we were in the grassy part of eastern Wyoming.”

“Yeah, we’re known for being an empty state,” Rocky agreed, finally smiling.

After some discussion of directions, she and Asher got back in their truck and started the convoy moving again. They headed southeast, toward Pinedale, which boosted her morale during the drive.

“If there are two thousand people in the town, I’m sure we can find a few who want to help us. They’ll see our group of park service trucks and be tripping over themselves to be a part of this. I feel good about what we’re doing.” The memory of bullets ripping through the air had begun to fade.

“Don’t get your hopes up too high,” Asher cautioned.

She ignored him and pulled out her phone. There was a weak signal, so she tried calling her dad. It rang for ten seconds, then went to voicemail. “Hi, Dad. I was right about going to Yellowstone. I have…” She counted the vehicles behind her. “About eleven trucks following my lead. We’re heading for a town called Pinedale, then we’re going to push on to Boulder. We’ve heard there’s going to be trouble there. I can’t wait to meet up with you. Stay safe, okay? I love you.”

Grace hung up without clapping, as it wasn’t easy to do while holding the steering wheel. Besides, the new town was approaching.

Asher chuckled. “You let him know he was wrong, didn’t you?”

“I did?” she said, playing coy.

“Yeah, remember that whole back and forth you had with him about how he didn’t want you to go off alone to the park? How he wanted you to wait for him to arrive? Any of this ringing a bell?”

She may have deliberately forgotten about those phone calls. After getting away from Nerio, she and her dad had finally linked over the phone. He explained why it would take him several days to reach her. She explained why she couldn’t sit around for that time. It turned into a point of contention, except her dad relented much sooner than she would have expected. It was almost as if he trusted her to make her own choices, which both surprised and pleased her. Without Mom around to put the kibosh on her grandiose plans, her dad seemed easy by comparison…

Grace wasn’t going to let memories of her mother get her down. If Mom had given her a hard time, it was a result of Grace planning to do something dangerous. In this case, it was absolutely true. As such, maybe she did gloat a little in leaving the message for her dad. She might have told him she’d been right about heading for Yellowstone to look for help, but next time they spoke, she would tell him he was right, too, about how insanely dangerous it had been. She’d almost been doused by scalding hot water and shot at by a rogue TKM guard.

The day was young, too. It was barely past lunch time.

“Uh, Grace,” Asher said slowly, drawing her out of her thoughts.

“What is it?” she asked, looking around as they drove into the little burgh.

“Signs.” He pointed to spray-painted sheets of plywood nailed against wooden telephone poles. “That one says we should turn back on account of radiation.”

It reminded her of another city.

“I’m going to guess those are BS, like Cheyenne. We know there’s no danger in these dig sites, other than TKM guns.”

Another sign said nothing but the misspelled word “poisin” on it. The word was stenciled with green spray paint, as if the very letters were corrosive.

“Nothing to worry about…” she said while trying not to make it a lie.

Her stomach turned to mush as she scanned the little shops, small homes, and the town park. Grace expected to see some sign of life in any or all of those places, especially given it was the lunch hour. However, as they drove through the town for the next two minutes, there wasn’t any sign of activity, not even the police or military. Cheyenne had at least had men guarding it.

It wasn’t poison, fire, or radiation which had forced the people out.

It had been TKM. Exactly like back in Jackson.

She drove on, determined as ever to find her friends.

Soda Ash Plant, WY

Ezra had a devious plan in his head and was ready to share it with Haley and Butch, but his new phone vibrated to alert him to a message. Despite the growing cloud of dust out on the horizon, he had to take it. “It’s Grace.”

The message was brief, based on the length of the recording. “Hi, Dad. I was right about going to Yellowstone. I have…about eleven trucks following my lead. We’re heading for a town called Pinedale, then we’re going to push on to Boulder. We’ve heard there’s going to be trouble there. I can’t wait to meet up with you. Stay safe, okay? I love you.”

He hung up and immediately spoke to his friends. “Screw this. We’re in the wrong part of the war. Grace is north of here, heading for the town of Boulder. She’s closer than I ever would have thought.”

“What are we going to do? Christian is watching us like a hawk, I’m sure.” Butch pointed down the line of shipping containers to where Christian had gone. “If he’s like most of these chicken-shit wannabe soldiers, he circled around and is now watching all of us in these coffins from a safe perch back in the factory.” He motioned behind them to the soda ash plant a hundred yards away.

Ezra already had a plan in mind, but he stacked on an additional directive. It wasn’t only a matter of helping the approaching people. He needed to get his friends out of the battle completely.

“Okay, we can’t walk straight back to the plant. We’ll be spotted and probably shot for desertion. Instead, we’re going to swing around that way.” He showed them where he wanted to go.

“You think the men in those boxes will simply let us pass?” Butch asked in a low voice.

He drew in a deep breath, knowing what he was about to ask. “We’re going to stop at each one and take them out of the battle.”

Haley raised her hand. “I’m not a coward, but I’m not a warrior, either. How are we going to get this done? What can I do?”

Ezra smiled, handing her the mostly-filled five-gallon water container.

“What do I do with this?”

Briefly, he explained the plan.

Butch whistled in amazement. “That’s ballsy, even for you, E-Z.”

“You guys ready?” Ezra said, not wanting to let how dangerous his plan really was sink in. He’d often scolded Grace for going off on her own, rather than listening to his wise cautionary tales, but here he was, doing an activity way more dangerous.

All thoughts of having a double standard bled away when a bullet whizzed by.

“Hurry,” he exclaimed, waving for Haley and Butch to jump into action. They all ran for the next container. Haley carried the water, which was at least thirty pounds, but he had to admit she made it look easy. After pulling tires for fun, carrying the load was child’s play for her. However, he’d assigned the task to her for a very important reason.

When they arrived at the open doors of the first cargo container, Haley called inside. “Water girl is here!”

A sweaty young man came to his door to greet her. However, what he got instead of a cheery delivery girl were two armed men with rifles pointed at his face. Butch pushed inside, shoving the man backward on his butt.

“Drop those rifles, boys,” Haley laughed.

The three men had no choice but to lay them down. Once they did, Ezra was faced with a dilemma. There was no rope to tie them, their pack and gear was all still back in the pickup truck. They couldn’t let them go, as they would run to the closest TKM guard and report the betrayal. They also couldn’t shoot them in cold blood.

Butch seemed to notice his hesitation. “Make them strip off all their clothes, so we’ll know they have no weapons.”

The three men crowded toward the rear of the container, which was the end without a door. They didn’t seem anxious to strip until Butch aimed his rifle at them. “My friend here isn’t the type to shoot you guys, but I did time over in Iraq. I know how to be very persuasive.”

That got things moving.

Quietly, he instructed Haley to take their clothes and stack them outside the container, toward the front. As she took the load of laundry, a bullet smacked against the outer wall, sending his ears ringing.

Butch slung all three enemy rifles over his shoulders.

“You fellas just stay in here, okay? Those bullets are coming in from the attackers, but if we see anyone running the field in their underwear, my sniper friends are going to make you regret it.”

One of the men spoke up. “We’re not going anywhere. We shouldn’t even be here.”

Another added, “Not our sofa. Not our cushions.”

Ezra almost experienced their pain. Who knows where they were picked up? Who would willingly get into the containers to defend a bunch of rocks? Money could only go so far.

He and his pair of helpers backed out of the container and shut the doors. On a whim, Haley used a discarded belt to secure the handles so the men couldn’t open it from the inside.

“Smart thinking,” Ezra said once it was clear what she was doing.

The trucks were closing the distance. He took a quick peek to see them spread out in a line, advancing toward the soda ash plant like a wall of Civil War soldiers. A few shots came in from those trucks, but they were still too far to shoot at him effectively. It gave them time to move to the next container.

Ezra rallied his troops. “All right. We have our procedure. We take out each group of men using Haley as our bait. It’s going to get us all the way to the edge of the battlefield. That’s where we’ll make a run for the rigs with our stuff.”

The plan worked for several cargo containers. By the time they’d made it to the fourth in the line, one close to the edge of the defenses, the trucks were within a few hundred yards. Definitely close enough to target him and his pals.

“Hurry! We’ll knock this one out, then we’re going to skip the last one. We’ve done all we can and we’ll be close enough to the plant to run there.” He balanced the need to help the attackers while safely extracting himself from the area so he could go meet Grace up north.

Haley hurried up to the door carrying the container. “Water girl!” She tried to sound cheerful, but two bullets pinged off the metal, and one ricocheted wildly off a nearby rock.

They were all distracted by that whirring bullet, which made it a mutual surprise when the door opened, and a pointed gun greeted them.

“Water girl?” Ezra repeated sheepishly.

Chapter 14

Boulder, WY

“There it is,” Grace remarked, feeling a little like she was a participant in a war movie. “Our target for the day. The man on the phone said TKM has a trap there. Anyone see anything?”

She peered through a pair of borrowed binoculars given by one of the others. A few park rangers crouched nearby, looking through their field glasses. It allowed them to take up position on a low rise far outside of town, so they could plan what to do next.

“I see nothing,” she added. The word town was too big to properly describe what she was looking at. There was a little gas station and convenience store on a street corner, plus a similar building next to it. A gravel road ran between them, then through a small trailer park. By following the ribbon of white, dusty rock, it was apparent that was the road leading into the mountains. It was where Shawn and his people would come from.

“Wait!” As she scanned the gravel road, a plume of dust appeared toward the mountain range. “I think I see them coming.” She wondered if Shawn knew his vehicles were throwing up so much dust. It was giving them away.

She lowered the binoculars and stood there for a few moments, thinking about traps, the time they had before Shawn reached the town, and how they might warn him. Thus, she was unprepared when someone put their arm around her shoulders.

“Ash?” she asked, sounding surprised.

He held her tight. “I’m not very suave, Grace, but this seemed like the last opportunity to do this before we got back in the cramped truck.”

She shook off her initial uncertainty, then leaned into him. “I’m always available for snuggling.”

“Even when we’re about to go into danger?”

Grace looked into his eyes. “Especially if we are. I couldn’t do this without you, you know.”

Asher’s rich, brown eyes gazed into her soul. “I’m going to kiss you one last time, too.”

She didn’t hold back. Instead, Grace met him as they embraced there on the hillside. It helped to forget, for a few seconds, what was ahead. However, she had to let go long before she wanted to. “Hey, now. Remember our deal.”

Asher beamed. “When we finally meet your dad, I’m going to ask him if I have his permission to date you.”

It was their game. Despite her mother often holding her back, Grace was a modern woman. She could date any man she wanted. However, by mutual agreement, she and Asher dialed back their smoldering interest under the pretext they needed her dad’s permission to go out on a real date. Still, it didn’t prevent her from sneaking peeks at Asher, and she often caught him doing the same. Ending TKM’s threat and meeting up with her father was what it was all about, but wanting to finally let herself go with the man she’d come to see as much more than a friend, came in a close second.

Now was not that time.

Rocky and Carson came up to her, as if recognizing their moment of intimacy was over. “You want our advice?” Rocky asked.

She and Asher stepped a few paces apart, and she raised the binoculars again to catch her breath. While Rocky spoke, she scanned the town one more time.

“We think you should drive into town as one big procession. They’ll never be able to stop all of you. There can’t be many of them down there. Look at the place.”

He was right; there wasn’t much to see. The two shops along the highway didn’t seem to be heavily trafficked, though there was a blue passenger car parked in front of the gas station. The trailer park wasn’t much of a going concern, either. There were about ten trailers on each side of the gravel road, lined up mostly facing the mountains. Probably for the view.

Grace did notice movement at one of the trailers.

“I see something,” she said, shushing those around her.

“What do you see?” Asher said quietly, almost in her ear.

A man pushed open a set of doors at the end of the trailer, though it didn’t sit right with her. She had to squint to take in the details, but it was hard to square what she saw with reality. Then it snapped for her. The trailers were long and thin, as she’d expect from any mobile home. They sat in a trailer park, furthering the illusion. However, the man exiting from the end made her appreciate what she was looking at. Most of the boxy shapes weren’t homes at all. They were cargo containers.

“I see a fortress,” she lamented.

Soda Ash Plant, WY

“Whoa there, big fella,” Haley exclaimed, staring at the gun barrel leveled at her face. “I’m here with water.” Her arm muscles flared as she held the heavy water container where the man couldn’t miss it.

The guy looked at Haley, then at him and Butch, but ducked reflexively when a bullet struck the outside of the metal container. A second later, they all put their heads down as one of the men inside fired his weapon through the firing slit. Concussive waves of air blew out of the shipping container.

“Can we come in?” Haley said seriously, continuing her charade.

The man lowered his pistol. He was average build, perhaps in his thirties, but he seemed dry and worn out, as if he’d spent too much time in the sun and rocky wasteland in these parts. His dry lips cracked as he grinned at Haley. “Any chance you could deliver something more interesting?”

“She’s only delivering water,” Butch said in defense.

“Hey, I didn’t ask you. Let the lady speak for herself.” Dry guy didn’t seem worried at all he was propositioning a woman while his buddy repeatedly fired a rifle twenty feet down the inside of the box. The middle guy stood behind his friend, apparently anxious to see what Haley would say.

Haley set the water down, speaking at the same time. “I don’t need him to answer for me. I can do it on my own. You boys can drop—” She did her best to swing her rifle off her shoulder and point it at the guy, but he almost seemed ready for it. As she brought it to bear, he kicked it aside, then punched her on the side of the head.

“What the hell?” Ezra let out, surprised.

“DROP IT!” Butch bellowed, shoving his way past Haley.

The man with the pistol brought it back up, intending to target Butch. However, when he realized the blue-shirted TKM goon wasn’t going to do as he was told, Butch had to shoot him several times in the chest. The man managed to get one shot off, but it missed Butch and hit the inside of the half-open door behind him.

Ezra’s heart beat louder than the rifle hammering away. The first guy fell backward. The second man tried to bring his rifle up off the wall where he’d set it. Ezra had to put two shots into his chest. Shots that seemed ten times louder than the man already firing.

The man on the end figured out what was happening an instant too late to do him any good. He pulled his rifle from the shooting port and tried to redirect it to the people inside his defensive base. Ezra fired his rifle at the same time both Haley and Butch unleashed theirs.

The man fired, too, but then instantly fell over.

“Holy crap!” Ezra blurted after the return shot struck the metal wall at his side.

The container went silent.

When he turned his attention to the man at the end, he was down on the floor, bleeding out a lake. He reached out to the three of them, wearing a look of abject fear. But, in a few short seconds, he went completely still.

Ezra didn’t know what to say. They’d engaged in a fight to the death, and Death had come to their shipping container. Ezra breathed in and out like a steam engine, wondering how close he’d come to being the guy on the floor. He needed time for his heart to slow back down.

“Everyone okay?” Butch asked, seemingly oblivious to the threats outside them or the high-stakes gamble they’d survived. Haley was down on one knee, trying to keep from crying.

“It’s all right,” Butch comforted as he gently brushed his fingers through her hair. “You both did great.”

“I almost got you killed,” Haley said, not yet crying, but sounding emotional.

“Hey,” Butch replied, pulling her up. “Don’t fall apart on me. You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met. I know you can do this.”

She sniffled a bit. “I’m sorry. You’re right. This isn’t me. We’ve seen some danger since I left St. Charles, but I heard the bullet zip by my head. That was close.”

Ezra couldn’t deny he’d been severely affected by the violence and whizzing bullets, too. He took a final deep breath, intending to bolster her spirits with words of kindness and support as a leader should. However, before he uttered a sound, she grabbed the water container.

“Next one, I’ll be faster on the draw.” Haley walked out the doors, then went toward the back of the container, out of the line of fire of the approaching trucks.

Butch flashed a wry smile, then trotted out after her.

When Ezra came out, the trucks were slowing on their approach. The shipping boxes on the far end had begun to fire at them, which was making them think twice about proceeding. Several of the trucks displayed broken windshields, suggesting the TKM people were doing some damage. He and his team had wiped out many of the fortified boxes on the right side of the line, but there was one more. He’d planned to skip it, especially since its doors were shut, but Haley went right for it.

He ran after Haley and Butch, who were almost at the last container.

“Hold up!” he called out. “We don’t actually need to do this one.” He looked back at the stopped trucks, wondering if that was true.

“It’s only one more,” Haley protested. “I want to do this right. Plus, we’ll have this side cleared. If those trucks can’t make it with the hole we’ve made, they never will.”

Butch looked at him with what-can-I-do eyes. Ezra knew his buddy was willing to press the attack with his lady friend and he wouldn’t do it if he thought it was going to fail. Ezra had to admit, other than the last miscue, they were doing some stellar work clearing the strong points.

“One more,” he finally agreed.

The doors to the yellow shipping container were sealed shut. Haley knocked while he and Butch prepared their rifles. In silent agreement, they nodded to each other about the need to be ready with weapons this time. No one would get the drop on them again.

They hunched down next to the door, toward the back side, waiting for it to open. Bullets plinked off the metal and repeatedly struck rocks all around them.

“Water girl is here!” Haley yelled over the din.

“Tell them ammo is here, too,” Ezra suggested.

“And ammo!” she added happily.

The swinging doors unlatched. Despite being completely prepared for whoever opened them, Ezra took pause when he saw the face.

“Christian?” he let slip.

Anticline Ranch, WY

Mr. Aarons rushed into Petteri’s command center, which remained inside the living room of the rustically decorated Anticline Ranch. “The attack is hitting our wall in the south, sir. The shipping containers are making them think twice about pushing into the train depot.”

“Will it stop them? You know we have to keep the ash plant open so we can load the coal cars with ore from there. It will take time. We need to keep the enemy clear of the tracks, too.” He knew it was an impossible task, but he was committed to his plan.

“The last word I got from Nerio Torres was the civilian force was getting sniped to death from her people in the front line of shipping containers. I’d say it’s going to stop them.” Mr. Aarons seemed a little uncertain.

Dorothy was already there, with her laptop set up at the end of the conference table. She looked up when Mr. Aarons seemed to finish. “I’m not so sure. I have a surveillance drone over the action right now. I can see the line of trucks and cars out in rocky scrub. It looks like they’re stopped here, but not over here.” After he and Aarons joined her, she pointed to the western part of the line of shipping containers. Trucks had sped into the row of metal containers, as if willing to absorb whatever gunfire came their way.

“How are they getting through?” Petteri asked.

The drone floated around the weakened section of the defensive line. All the boxes seemed to be shut, save for the last one. She pointed to the screen where three people huddled together outside the box while seemingly talking to someone on the inside. Whatever was happening, they seemed oblivious to all the vehicles inching closer.

“I’m not sure. It’s almost like no one is inside the containers toward the western half, or they aren’t firing back.” Dorothy tried to fly the drone to get a better look at the front sides of the colorful boxes, but she cried out when the screen jolted.

“What was that?” Petteri asked.

“Someone is shooting at my eye in the sky. I’ve got to back it away from the danger zone.”

He tried not to show worry. Petteri also tried not to feel it. If his men couldn’t follow a simple command and shoot their weapons at the approaching terrorists, he wondered why he should bother paying them at all. Of course, it also struck him that some of the men could be changing their minds about playing soldier. He’d put Nerio in charge down there; he’d expected more from her. As it was, if they were already passing the outer line of defenses, it wouldn’t be long before they were inside the soda ash plant. His men would have an easier time defending the stout metal buildings, but it would also endanger his trains.

“Show me what’s going on in Boulder,” he demanded, hoping for better news.

Dorothy switched the camera view to show another aerial drone’s feed. When she clicked over, the screen showed more shipping containers next to a dumpy little town.

She brushed away her bangs before looking at him. “Mr. Tikkanen, I’m repositioning this drone so it can see along the gravel road. I’d like to get a better look at the attackers coming from up there.”

He pointed to the screen. “What are those?” The image panned wider than the town as the flying platform veered in the sky. The maneuver revealed a thin line of vehicles on the distant highway. “White trucks?” he asked.

“Let me see,” she sighed, before leaning over her keyboard. She seemed a little put out he would ask a question while she was moving the aircraft, but her feelings were none of his concern.

“I can’t get too close, but this zoomed picture shows them parked about a mile from the town.” The picture flipped to a fuzzy image showing a line of white SUVs parked alongside the desolate two-lane highway. There were at least ten of the uniform vehicles, followed by a pair of pickups.

The lead SUV was beat up and stripped of most of its color.

“Get close to that one,” he demanded.

“But sir, the main attack is coming from the mountains. Those people are in the open. They’ll know we’re watching them. They might even—”

“Just do it!” he snapped. After a brief moment of reflection, he added. “I think I recognize one of them. If so, we’ve got problems requiring immediate solutions.”

If it was Asher and the park ranger, he was tempted to divert one of the nukes to land on top of them. It would totally be worth it.

Chapter 15

Boulder, WY

“We have to warn Shawn he’s walking into a trap,” Grace said while still peering through the binoculars. That isn’t a sleepy town, it’s crawling with enemy forces.” To her point, a small propeller aircraft flew about a hundred feet above her head. “On the ground and in the air.”

Asher looked distractedly at the aircraft, then turned back to her. “Maybe Shawn and his people will see the same thing?”

She faced the dust plumes coming out of the mountains to the east. They were still too far away to determine if they had a line-of-sight to the town. From her position, however, it didn’t seem likely. There were a few rolling hills leading up to that side of the town, so they’d have to get very close before they saw the place in any detail.

Candy’s voice came from behind her. “What do you want us to do, boss?”

Grace tensed up. She hadn’t planned on being in charge of the whole group. Not when it came time to fire weapons. After getting to her feet, she looked for someone who might be able to help. “Does anyone have military experience?”

The older gentleman, Carson, raised his hand. She pointed to him. “What would you do? I want to get down there before my friends arrive, so they know the place is dangerous. We can’t drive in through the front, can we?”

Carson chewed on his lip. “Well, I can’t say I did anything truly dangerous in the service. Flew to Okinawa, once, but it was after Vietnam was all wrapped up. I was involved in supply.”

“But you’ve seen war happen, didn’t you?” Asher probed.

“Well, sure. You gather overwhelming force. Strike in the middle of the night. Decapitate the enemy before they even know you’re there.”

She couldn’t do any of that.

Carson went on. “But here, I think we have to take a different approach.”

“So, not a direct assault,” she said to herself.

Asher picked up on her thought. “What if we attack slowly?”

Carson laughed, as did a few others.

Grace was more restrained, but still smiled at him.

He continued. “It’s like when we approached the rock in Denver. We did it slowly, unnoticed, by using the tunnels. By the time they picked us out of the rubble, we were next to the rock. Angela was stealing it, in fact.”

It did make some sense, but she wasn’t sure how it applied to Boulder. Unless…

She took a stab at a plan. “This is a public road, right? We haven’t seen any cars traveling for a long time, but the highway isn’t closed. There haven’t been any Keep Out signs.”

Candy raised her hand and spoke. “The only other vehicles we’ve seen were these.” She pointed to the trucks belonging to Carson and Rocky.

Grace got into a groove. “Right. So, it would stand to reason these men would return this way after doing their time at the roadblock, right?”

Carson became a bit agitated. “Oh, no, you don’t mean we drive on down there?”

The redheaded woman giggled mischievously. “We’ll be watching from up here.”

“No, we all go at the same time,” Grace said unevenly, feeling the words bunch up in her throat. It was the first time she was knowingly recommending they all head into danger.

“What?” Candy said at the same time as Carson.

“You and Rocky will drive your unassuming civilian trucks down there. Me and the others will pile in the backs, ready to hop out when we get into the heart of the town. Probably at the gas station.” She had an uneasy feeling about trusting herself to strangers, but both seemed like decent men, based on what had happened after the shooting at the roadblock.

Candy pulled her aside, concern beading at her brows. “Look, girlfriend, I know I signed up for this, but that place scares me. Are you sure we have to go down there? Can’t we go around it? Maybe meet your friends before they get there?”

Grace gave her the “wait a second” sign as she pulled out her phone, wondering if she could somehow get a hold of Shawn. It didn’t surprise her, however, when she tried his number and there was nothing but a voice message. She left a brief one saying hello, but thought better of leaving any hints which might give her away to the enemy.

“That was a bust.” She reached out and touched Candy’s arm. “I can’t make you do anything, you know. I’m just a simple ranger, like you. I have to go, however, because those men helped me out of some tough spots. They’re like my family. I don’t want them to walk into a trap.”

Candy seemed fortified by her words. “So, we’ll spring the trap first?”

“Yeah, I guess that’s exactly what we’re going to do…” Her words drifted off, wondering if they were overlooking the obvious. Could driving into the heart of town really be the best course of action? She shifted directions, looking once more to the plume of dust rolling down the valley coming out of the mountains. It would reach Boulder in ten or fifteen minutes.

“Well, I guess if you’re going, I’ll give it a whirl.” Candy stood there for a second, then went back to her truck, presumably to gather her weapon and some ammo.

In the end, they chose three vehicles to go into town. Carson’s black Ford went first. Grace’s NPS Chevy went second. Rocky’s brown pickup went last. They staggered themselves, so Carson was a quarter of a mile in front. The idea was to make the people in the town think they were locals arriving separately, not as one group. If the defenders in town were bad guys with TKM, she prayed they would all be watching the arriving vehicles to the east, not a few random trucks driving happily along the main highway.

She and Asher took up positions in the front seat of her truck. Candy and two other rangers sat in the back seat. Four others crammed into the cargo bed, lying down to stay out of sight. As she started the truck and waited for Carson to get the proper distance ahead, her lungs heaved faster and faster, as if building up to a deep dive underwater.

“You okay?” Asher asked with worry.

Grace glanced over, forcing a smile. “I just don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

His return smile belied the truth.

It was probably an impossible request.

Soda Ash Plant, WY

“What the hell are you guys doing out there?” Christian reached out and grabbed Haley, pulling her and the water inside the container. “They’re shooting at us!”

To put emphasis on his words, several incoming rounds snapped off the outer shell of the shipping box. When everyone was inside, he pointed to the two men firing away through the holes. “We reinforced these containers to be able to withstand everything up to fifty cals, but I don’t think those civilians have anything like that.” He eyed Haley. “You guys were supposed to stay inside your thick shells, like freaking turtles, not come running outside to pass along water. Who ordered you to move?”

“I did,” Ezra said, raising his rifle at Christian’s chest.

The warrior didn’t seem surprised. “What is this? A revolt?”

“No, we’re not organizing a rebellion. We don’t want to fight for you. We’re leaving. Now, put down your guns and no one gets hurt.”

“Or what?” Christian replied. His two allies continued to fire rapidly through the slits. They either didn’t know what Ezra was doing, or they didn’t care. He went with the former.

“Hey!” Ezra yelled, looking past Christian.

An instant later, he was shoved sideways. Christian had reached out in a blur and strong-armed him into the wall. At the same time, he pushed Haley backward, causing her to trip.

“Oh sh—” Haley started to say. Her words were drowned out by the sound of her rifle going off.

The bullet struck the roof, then bounced into the depths of the container.

The two men looked up from their work.

Christian was fast, but he wasn’t quick enough to push all three of them down. Butch kept his feet and shoved back at the other man. Before the TKM leader could yank out his pistol, Butch had him reeling on his heels.

The shipping container was twenty feet long but seemed tiny as he and five other people shifted positions. His most pressing concern was for Butch, but he recognized what would happen if the two shooters turned his way.

Ezra leveled his rifle at the closest guy. He was a younger man, in his twenties, with his blue shirt untucked. His TKM ball cap was on backward, allowing him to get right next to the wall to fire outside, but it also made him appear younger.

Still, Ezra had no time to debate himself. He fired in quick succession; at six feet, it was impossible to miss.

The second man hopped up as Butch and Christian tumbled at his feet. When he came down, he aimed up the length of the container. The man fired his rifle at the same moment as Ezra…and their shots might have crossed in the tiny space.

The bullet cut the air above Ezra’s head, igniting sparks on the roof. The other man’s shifting stance, due to Butch and Christian’s arrival, had disrupted his aim.

By contrast, Ezra had his feet firmly planted. After downing the first man, it was a small correction to aim the muzzle at the next target. His shots went center of mass, causing another young man to fall backward.

Butch and Christian grunted and yelled as they rolled on the plywood floor.

“Butch!” Haley exclaimed, getting back to her feet.

She looked over at Ezra. “Sorry for shooting my rifle on accident. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

Christian screamed in anger. Butch flew sideways, as if tossed. His back hit the rear wall of the container. Ezra took a couple of steps in their direction, but there was no way to fire his rifle without endangering Butch. As the two men lined each other up, he searched for ways to fire at an angle, or down, so as to keep Butch out of the path of a bullet meant for Christian.

Haley suffered no such thoughts. She ran toward Christian, who currently had his back to her. Instead of using her rifle to shoot, she swung it backward, intending to crack the man on the back of the head.

“Die!” she screamed.

Her rifle hit the side wall as she wound up her swing, which took most of the energy out of her attack. It ended up striking the man on the shoulder, which caused him to immediately turn and backhand her in the jaw.

“Stay out of this!” Christian hissed at her.

Butch went into a rage. He reached down toward the floor for an object out of Ezra’s vision. His rifle was on the ground nearby, though it would be tough to grab without Christian trying to stop him. After seeing a flash of steel, Ezra knew it wasn’t a rifle. It was his knife.

“That was a mistake,” Butch said calmly, throwing himself at the TKM boss.

Christian was taken by surprise, but he caught Butch’s hand, stopping the big knife in it. The TKM man laughed smugly. “I’ve been fighting kids like you since my days in Special Forces. We used to trade knives in hand-to-hand practice six times a day.”

Butch squared his powerful legs as if to try to pull the knife back away from Christian, but he seemed caught by the more skilled adversary.

Ezra again tried to line up his shot, but now Butch was even closer to the other man. It was less likely he could fire without hitting his friend. A few heartbeats later, he realized he would have to close the distance and try to attack the guy from behind.

However, before he could move, Haley had made it to one knee. She swung her rifle by the barrel with all the power she could muster. This time, the gun didn’t strike the wall. She was able to put full strength into the level swing, which went into the side of Christian’s knee.

“Damn!” the guy cried out, falling sideways.

Butch held on for a second, then pushed Christian to add power to his fall. They both struck the wall, causing the knife to rattle free.

It was Ezra’s chance. He lunged forward, ready to strike the man on the head.

A moment before he could attack, a handgun blasted out, almost in Ezra’s face. He froze where he was as the concussion hammered him over and over.

By the fifth shot, he realized it was Haley.

Blood splashed from Christian’s chest as she pumped more ordnance into him.

“Holy crap!” he shouted.

He and Butch clawed their way from Christian as Haley continued to dump ammo into the corpse propped against the wall. It only stopped when she’d run out of bullets.

The three of them stood frozen, as if someone had taken a picture of them. Haley with a pistol pointed at Christian. Butch hunkered down on the far side of the dead man, ready in case he wasn’t truly dead. And Ezra, crouched a few feet away from the bullet-riddled body. Covered in blood.

He was about to speak when Haley snapped out of it. She turned to Ezra for a moment, then flung herself at Butch.

“I thought he was going to kill you!”

Butch laughed with obvious relief as she choked him with affection.

“He almost did.”

Chapter 16

Boulder, WY

Grace pulled her truck to the gas pump. Carson was parked at the island ahead of her. On the drive in, she didn’t see anyone in the town, though she knew someone was in the shipping containers.

“I’ll go inside. I’ll pretend I need to get gas, all right?”

Asher hooked the door handle. “You want me to go with?”

She thought about what could go wrong. “No, if necessary, you drive everyone out of here.” Grace tossed her keys at him.

He nodded grimly.

It didn’t seem civilized to carry her rifle inside, but she kept her police pistol in its holster on her belt. It was better than going in unarmed. She paused for a second at the blue Toyota sedan parked near the front door to be sure no one was in there, then she went for the shop. When she pushed through the doors, a wave of cool air hit her. “Ahhh,” she said reflexively.

A man’s voice greeted her. “It’s a hot one.”

The guy stood behind the counter. His blue shirt alerted her to his allegiance. Still, she was supposed to be an innocent passerby.

She smiled at him as she walked toward the drinks. “Just passing through. It’s nice to catch some cool air.”

The man looked outside. “Day-aam, is that your truck? It’s got no windows!”

Grace walked aimlessly through the aisles, not sure how to play it. If he was with TKM, he might alert others to her. With recon in mind, she grabbed a random bottle of soda, then went toward the front. “I work for the park service, as you can no doubt tell by the uniform. My truck got the brunt of the asteroid when it sailed over Yellowstone.”

He leaned against his window, looking at the truck. “I ain’t never seen a truck as beat up as yours. It looks like you even got bullet holes, or something. But that’s ridiculous, right?”

She laughed it off as she strode up to the counter. “No, those are from rocks. The shockwave was incredibly powerful. Didn’t you get the same thing here?”

“Nah, we only got a little earthquake when it rolled in. I drove out to take a look at it, at least until them fellas came and took it over.”

She looked at him with more scrutiny. He was well-tanned, probably Hispanic, and about her age. His shirt was indeed blue, but it didn’t have any TKM markings. Instead, it had the logo for the chain of gas stations. It was his work shirt.

Grace let out the breath she’d been holding. “You aren’t with TKM?”

He laughed. “No. Why would you think that?”

“Oh, nothing,” she said, hoping to avoid a more in-depth discussion. Her focus was on finding out where the bad guys were hiding; they weren’t inside the man’s shop. “I only need this.” She placed the bottle of Mountain Dew on the counter.

He scanned the soda, asked for the money, but before he gave the receipt, he added. “There are some TKM guys around, though. They’ve been all over Boulder since yesterday. I think they bought up all the pads at the Boulder Metropolitan Trailer Park.”

“Are you serious? Is there a metro area here?”

He cracked up. “Nah. It’s what we call the dump. Boulder has like ten people living here, or at least before they came along and kicked everyone out.”

“TKM kicked your townspeople out of your homes?”

“No, I don’t live here. Almost no one does. I live in Green River. Though, I admit I did stay here overnight. The roads are clogged down south. No way for me to get home.” He winked at her. “Don’t tell my boss, okay?”

It explained the blue car parked out front.

“I won’t,” she assured him, already anxious to get back outside. If TKM was operating in the trailer park, she and her people could get the drop on them. The gas station was no longer a potential trap for her. It would be a sneaky beachhead for their takeover of the town.

She headed for the door but paused before pushing it open. “Hey, why do you think TKM is even here? Isn’t it a little out of the way for anyone to buy up real estate like they did?”

The man shrugged. “They come in here and buy stuff, but they aren’t very talkative. I’ve heard them mention stuff about the rock sitting out in the valley, and I’ve heard them talk about the shipping containers they brought in on flatbeds, but that’s about it. Why they’re doing anything is above my pay grade.”

Grace smiled. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” He looked out the window. “Oh, it looks like we have a lot more business all the sudden.”

She pushed through the doors. Carson stood by his truck. Rocky had arrived, too. He stood next to his door. Both of the men had their hands high in the air. As she stood there, Carson nodded to her, then off to her side.

“Oh crap,” she blurted.

Men with guns stood at the corner of the building. They covered all three trucks, and one man had a rifle pointed directly at her.

Her brilliant attack plan was already a failure.

Soda Ash Plant, WY

“What do we do now?” Haley said, catching her breath.

There was no way to clean off all the blood soaking into his shirt, but soon it wouldn’t matter. They’d done their job to perfection and took out half of the shipping containers. The advancing forces were pressing closer. The sounds of their engines vibrated the metal around them.

“We’ve got to run for it,” he said.

“We could surrender,” Butch said, still holding Haley.

Ezra gave him a look.

“What?” Butch went on. “It isn’t really a surrender if the people coming in are your friends.”

He was right, to an extent. “Butch, my man, I trust you with military matters completely, but this is a case of getting to my daughter. She’s to the north of here. If we get captured, there’s likely to be some debate about our status. Here we are inside a TKM shipping container. How do we explain that?”

Butch freed himself from Haley and proceeded to rip his shirt off. All the weapons he’d carried in were spread out on the floor from the fight. Before he could remove it, however, Ezra stopped him.

“No, wait. Hear me out. We’ve got to head back to the plant. Get our stuff. Head back through enemy territory. It’s the only way I know we’ll get to her.”

The big guy immediately put his shirt back on, eliciting a sigh of disappointment from Haley.

“Come on,” Ezra prodded, stepping closer to the exit. He halted when a truck sped by, turning away from him. “Shit! They’re here already.”

“You sure about this E-Z?” Butch asked, closing the distance with Haley at his side, single rifle in his arms again.

“I’m sure. Let’s go!” He ran outside before he could be talked out of it. Maybe surrender would get them in front of a sensible leader who would release them to go find Grace. Or maybe they would put him in a cage for the next ten years. There was a lot of killing going on. There would be a reckoning afterward.

The green truck which had sped by was now two containers down the row, a passenger hung a rifle out his window as if searching for men to shoot. If the guards he’d ambushed were still inside those cargo containers, they should be all right.

“Go for the tall building!” he yelled behind him.

Butch and Haley ran together. The large man had smartly tossed away his extra rifles, so he only had the one. Haley held hers to the side; he wasn’t sure if she still had the pistol, though it was definitely out of ammunition.

Bullets struck randomly around them as they ran.

A pair of shooters were on the roof of one of the low, squat metal structures at the plant. They acted as overwatch while the three of them ran in. Though he didn’t say it aloud, it was why he had his friends keep on those blue shirts. The TKM men aimed at the trucks speeding behind them.

He only looked back once, as they rounded the corner to safety. A few dozen trucks and Jeeps had pulled up to the shipping containers, obviously using them as cover while they cleared out the remaining men inside the miniature forts. Gunshots roared furiously back there, suggesting they might have made the right call running when they did.

“They’re shooting into the slits,” Butch remarked, panting as he came around the last corner of the building.

“Really?” Haley asked with concern.

Ezra couldn’t say he blamed them. “They’d been shot at as they drove up. I’m sure they lost good people. They weren’t taking any chances to open the doors. It was far safer to shoot inside and kill the defenders.” It bothered him somewhat that they were the reason the TKM guards couldn’t surrender. It also bothered him he’d almost been shot and killed. In the end, he wasn’t sure how to feel inside.

Haley gulped. “That could have been us.”

A woman responded. “Yes, it could.”

It was the same redheaded woman in the black catsuit. She walked up to the little rectangular building like she was on her way to class. “Are there other survivors?”

He might have ignored her, or shot her, except there were six soldier-like men in her wake, all with weapons drawn.

“We don’t know,” he replied, heart pumping at all the lies he was about to tell. “Christian fell. We saw him go down before we escaped from the carnage. A couple of the other bunkers made it out, but I’m not sure if they made it all the way back to this point.”

She looked around. “I don’t see anyone. I think we can safely say they didn’t.”

Ezra tried to be helpful. “We can check. Cover them as they come in.”

“No, that won’t be necessary,” she said dismissively before giving him what was clearly a once-over. “Your blood-covered shirts tell me you three are tough as nuts. I want you to follow me for a job I have—”

He was done being led around. “No, we’ve got plans. Sorry.”

Nerio laughed in a way he didn’t find funny. “I’m not sure I heard you correctly. I’m in charge of this whole plant. I have work that needs to be done by people like you. Unless you don’t want your million bucks?”

Ezra paused. “A million bucks?”

She walked up to him, leading him to think she was going to shoot him, which made him flinch. However, she got up in his face and smiled wickedly, then she knocked on his forehead like it was a door. “Hello in there? We’re all going to be millionaires if we help our boss get his ore onto the railway cars. How could you forget something so obvious?”

He cleared his throat. “I, uh, didn’t forget, ma’am.” He wore the shirt of TKM. He couldn’t exactly refuse payment. Money was presumably the motivation for all the men playing war at the soda ash plant, but the promise of said money was also a talisman against getting shot by unstable leaders. If he refused the bounty, he was no longer of any use to the cause. They wouldn’t simply let him walk out the front gate. “It’s just that we almost died—”

“Died, shmied,” she sing-songed. “You made it out alive. Hell, you can have the shares of all those dead men out there. I really don’t care about Petteri’s money. But you will come with me.”

She left no ambiguity.

The men with guns made it final.

Anticline Ranch, WY

Dorothy’s drones were a godsend as it gave Petteri a real-time basis from which to decide when to enact the most important piece of his plan. He had to start the ball rolling while the train station was still under his control. Based on what he’d seen with trucks reaching the line of shipping containers, it might not be for much longer.

Mr. Aarons and Dorothy both sat at the conference table, ready for his orders.

“I’ve seen enough. The drones have identified Asher Creighton and Grace Anderson as being present in the town of Boulder. I’d expect my contingent of guards to take care of her when she gets inside my trap, but I’ve come to expect the unexpected from those two. Our flank is in danger.”

“Shall I send reinforcements?” Craig Aarons inquired, reaching for his radio.

It was a smart play for his chief strategist, and someday he might tell him he’d done a commendable job defending the dig site. However, he brushed off the idea with a dismissive wave to maintain his firm grip on events. “No. I need all the men you’ve got left to protect the dump trucks. I’m going to send them on their way.”

“To the rail yard?” Aarons asked.

Petteri curled his lip in mischief. “I want you to announce to our troops the way must be secured by your teams. Every bridge needs to be guarded. Every inch of highway needs to be swept clean of terrorists. Then, we’ll need to load the dump truck ore onto the hopper cars as fast as possible. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“It’s very clear, sir. Hold open the road to the soda ash plant for as long as possible. Spare no troops to get it done.”

“Good,” he went on, “because that’s for enemy ears to hear.” He looked over to Dorothy, noting her concerned face. When he caught her eye, he motioned to the laptop. “How are things coming with the space program? Did you create what I needed?”

The confusion washed away. “I did indeed, sir. You’re not going to believe this.” As she’d done many times before, she spun her laptop so it faced Petteri. She paused as she observed Mr. Aarons approach.

“This is for him to hear, too,” Petteri said in a soothing tone.

“Very well,” she replied, pressing buttons.

A voice recording of a woman kicked off. “I don’t care what you have to do. I need those ships on the move to the coordinates I sent you.” The voice was clearly Nerio’s, accent and all.

Another woman replied, “I can have all of them launched within the hour. You’ll have the agreed upon payment in my Swiss account?”

“Of course,” Nerio’s voice answered, “as long as they blow up what needs blowing up.”

Dorothy stopped the recording. “I have five minutes of juicy stuff and about thirty seconds of small-talk. I thought it was appropriate to show these two had a familiarity with each other. It’s why they’re working together to sabotage TKM. They even talk specifically about crashing your maintenance drones to nuke cities.”

“Nerio is working for the other side?” Aarons said in wonder.

Dorothy was going to reply, but he cut her off. “Mr. Aarons, I’m sorry to do this, but could you step out? This is a critical juncture in our operation, and I don’t want Nerio to be a distraction for you. Come back in five minutes, please.”

He looked surprised at first, but then resigned to doing as he was told.

“I’ll be outside,” Craig said, walking out the door.

Petteri had a few seconds to appreciate his own cunning, crafted on the fly. Aarons would have no idea it was all a forgery. He would unwittingly be a part of the conspiracy against Nerio. He would swear he heard intelligence implicating the woman. Way down on his list, he thought, he also was glad Aarons wouldn’t be in on the con. The fewer people he had involved in a critical aspect of his operation, the better.

When sure the room was clear, he turned back to Dorothy. What she’d created was brilliant, but he always tempered his praise. “This will work. Nice job. Is the other woman who I think it is?” She’d been a guest of his for several days recently.

“Yep. I used the voice of Diedre Creighton to good effect, since she was already employed at mission control. You and I both know she’s not there, but who’s to say she isn’t hacking in as we speak?”

“A nice touch,” he said in an agreeable tone. Of the several cons he had running at the same time, Dorothy’s was the most rewarding. Over the next five minutes, she explained her software specs, how she’d gotten the voices of the women, and how she’d simulated the entire conversation across several states. Anyone snooping for the truth would be hard-pressed to identify the fake.

“Thank you,” she said, sounding most grateful.

The recorded voices would pin the upcoming nuclear attack on Nerio, while also implicating Diedre and, by extension, her brother and that insufferable park ranger. With a little extra effort, he could lasso in the Crow Nation and everyone else currently shooting at his people. Instead of being liberators for the people of Wyoming, they would be cast as money-grubbing terrorists intent on destroying every rock but their own. By doing so, they would ensure their lone surviving piece of asteroid would drive up the value of the rare earth minerals inside to untold trillions.

No one would have a clue it was actually his plan for TKM.

At exactly the five-minute mark, Aarons returned.

“Please, sit back down,” Petteri said, not giving a hint as to what the man had missed. He cleared his throat. “Now, getting back to my dump trucks. Take everything I’ve told you to say publicly and ignore it for the time being.”

Petteri rubbed his hands together, knowing they were about to be impressed by his brilliance.

“I’m going to tell you both what’s really been going on at this dig site.”

Chapter 17

Boulder, WY

Twenty men came out from behind the convenience store wielding every type of rifle and shotgun she could imagine. They were all dressed like normal people, however, without the typical blue shirts of other TKM employees. She kept her hands up until she saw a familiar face.

“Shawn Runs Hard?”

The Crow leader’s face brightened immediately. He didn’t let his wounded leg stop him from hobbling over to her. “Grace! We meet again.” He wrapped his arms around her while talking to his associates. “This woman and her friends are with us.”

Glancing at them again, she figured out most of them were darker-skinned Native Americans. She might have noticed it much sooner if they weren’t pointing weapons at her.

“I can’t tell you what a relief it is to see you,” she gushed. “I came out of this store thinking we’d walked into a trap.” She did a double-take. The plume of smoke was still miles away. “How did you come to be here, anyway?”

He stepped away from her and gave Asher a chuck on the arm. “We are Crow. We’ve been one with the land since before time. This isn’t our homeland, but the land sings a similar tune here. Our Wind River allies showed us the way through the mountains. They also helped us scout out this enemy encampment days ago. Last night we snuck a handful of warriors into this place, then we waited for daylight before creating the smoke you now see out there.”

They all looked to the continuing cloud of dust.

“It’s the oldest trick around. We have trucks dragging chains down the road. It made them think we were far away. While they were preparing for an attack from the east, we came at them from within their own camp.”

Another voice joined in. “And we didn’t lose a warrior!”

She whipped her head around. “Logan?”

“It’s me,” he bragged. The young man rushed over to her as if to hug, but then reconsidered. Before he could get away, she yanked him in for an embrace.

He blushed hard as they separated.

She spoke first. “When we left you in Rawlins, I checked my truck six times, inside and out, to be sure you didn’t sneak a ride with us.”

Her words made him laugh. “I thought about it, but I really wanted to travel the land with my dad. He let me meet with the other tribe. I got to ride in the lead truck on the trip through the mountains. He even took me with him as we snuck into this place last night. I think I made the right call.”

“I’m glad. And thanks for clearing this town for us. We were sitting ducks.”

Rangers piled out of the three trucks, loaded for war. She figured they might have made an honorable effort at attacking Boulder, but it wouldn’t have been as bloodless and perfect as what the Crow had done.

“What are you going to do with the TKM people?” Asher asked, looking around.

“When the women get here, we’ll let a few of them herd the group of men back through the mountains on foot. It will take them out of harm’s way.”

She was glad to hear they weren’t being killed, but she didn’t envy anyone having to walk a group over the mountains.

They stood there for a few moments before Grace remembered her manners. “Shawn Runs Hard, I’d like to introduce you to Candy, Rocky, and Carson. These three, plus all these other rangers running around, have chosen to join us in our efforts to rid this valley of Petteri Tikkanen and his ilk.”

“Nice to meet you all. I usually lead with a joke or two, but we’re pressed for time. The main group has been given the all clear, so they’ll be arriving shortly. My brother was supposed to come in from the south, but I haven’t heard from him, yet. Once we have everyone together, we’re going to press on toward the dig site to our west.” He pointed to the flat territory sprawled beyond the town. Unlike the thick plume of dust created by his people in the foothills of the mountains, there was a thin, wispy haze out in the valley, as if many machines were driving on the gravel roads out there.

For the next hour, the Crow people rounded up the last of the TKM guards hiding in the trailer park. The rangers set up in defensive positions throughout the little town. When the main convoy of Crow arrived, they set about getting the column of TKM men on the gravel road. They also brought all the ranger vehicles into the town, stuffing them behind and next to the shipping containers as a way of keeping them out of sight.

From time to time, she looked out on the valley, as did many others. There wasn’t a distinct plume of dust, like the one created by the dragged chains, but there was always a dull haze out there, as if heavy machinery and vehicles were constantly on the move. It was a continual point of discussion to try to guess what was creating it.

Shawn eventually gathered the leaders of both groups under the canopy protecting the gas pumps. “We think Petteri is going to take his ore to the railroad down to the south. As I said before, my brother was supposed to take care of that, but I’ve lost touch with him. Looking at the dust billowing down there, I’d say he failed to capture the place. Petteri is driving his trucks there as we speak. The ore will likely escape if we don’t make our move right now.”

Grace reached in her pocket for the phone. Where was her dad? He hadn’t left a message recently and she desperately needed to hear from him. However, there at the meeting, it wasn’t time to call.

She looked out to the dusty hinterlands.

I’ll call him when the meeting is over.

Boulder, WY

After barely surviving his cage match with Christian, Ezra was almost glad to be led by the hand away from the continuing battle at the soda ash plant. What he didn’t expect was getting on a helicopter with Nerio, flying forty-five minutes to the north, then being dumped off in an isolated dry stream bed next to an empty two-lane highway.

“This looks like where they take someone they want to murder,” Haley said, still nursing her bruises where she’d been punched.

“Looks like there are others,” Butch said quietly.

They watched as several civilian helicopters brought in men and women in their blue shirts. Like them, the new people stood around the riverbed as if expecting to get offed. He didn’t go around asking questions, though he very much wanted to do so. However, too many questions could reveal his group’s own dark secrets. Instead, Ezra hung out on the rocks, waiting, like everyone else.

“Over here!” Nerio shouted from on top of a nearby rise.

“We could sneak away,” Butch suggested. It wouldn’t be too hard, given no one knew who they were, and the wide spaces around them. Unfortunately, Nerio always locked on him like a hungry shark. She was looking at him at that moment.

“No, she’s got it in for me,” Ezra lamented. “But if you two can get away, do it.”

“Nah, we stick together,” Butch reminded him.

“Agreed,” Haley said, holding Butch’s hand as they walked at the back of the large crowd gathered there.

When they came up to the highway, it was impossible to miss the line of flatbed semitrucks arriving from the south, each carrying a lone metal shipping container. Nerio waved the people closer. “While the trucks arrive, I want you all to see where we’ll be going. Over there is the town of Boulder. It’s a nowhere town in this nowhere state. Probably ten people live there. However, right now it’s crawling with terrorist forces. They killed our men, slaughtered the few women we had working there, and they’ve threatened to take their mayhem right to Mr. Tikkanen at his dig. Our job is to put an end to their reign of terror.”

Ezra and about a hundred other people, mostly men, stared across three or four miles of hot, rocky wasteland toward the tiny town. He didn’t want to give the woman credit for knowing the sky was blue, but he had to admit there wasn’t much to the place. A gas station, a little shop, and a bunch of mobile homes.

Nerio looked down the huge scope of her sniper rifle. “With these twelve gun platforms, we’re going to secure the town so the ore can make it safely to the rail depot. Then it can go off to the processing plant. From there, it goes into your bank accounts. Remember, you’re only paid for helping us get the ore out of this valley. You guys want to get paid, don’t you?”

To a man, the crowd clapped and cheered. Ezra thought it was sloppy to be cheering while at the edge of a battlefield, but he wasn’t in a position to complain. Instead, he used the time to think about how he and his pals could derail the effort of the group.

“And the way we’re going to make sure you get your suitcases full of money is arriving right now.” She slung the rifle over her shoulder and took a few steps off the roadway, giving the first semitruck the right-of-way to roll past her.

As the air brakes belched out hisses, Nerio hopped onto the side step of the second truck, waving at everyone like a little girl. “Gather ’round!”

He sighed, not liking how things were playing out.

When everyone was there, Nerio continued her speech. “You’ll notice we have specially designed shipping containers on the rear flatbed of each truck. Some of you already know what these are for—” Nerio looked directly at Ezra, forcing him to acknowledge her. “But for the rest, I’ll tell you.”

While she explained the plan, he snuck looks all around. The terrain was too flat to run and hide, as it had been everywhere else in the valley. The town was too far away to use as a refuge, though he wished he could run the three miles and warn the town what was coming. It was also unlikely he could hide in or around the trucks. There were too many wary eyes in the group.

When Nerio seemed to be getting close to finishing, he tried to gently guide Haley and Butch out of her line of sight, but that turned out to be a bust. He could only get to the edge of the group. There was nowhere she couldn’t see.

“You three,” Nerio pointed to him, Butch, and Haley, “can get on the last truck. You’re my cleanup crew.”

He acknowledged her with a sarcastic wave.

Haley walked alongside him as they went back toward the rear of the line of semis. “I wish we would have kept going on Susan’s Grace. These people are trying hard to get us killed, aren’t they?”

Ezra admired the young woman for sticking with him as long as she had. Her hair was a mess. She was covered in sweaty dust. Her blue shirt was almost purple thanks to how much dried blood had soaked into it. Yet she still went on. He checked to confirm Butch held her hand on the far side.

They were twenty yards from their designated tractor-trailer. Ezra spoke in a low voice. “I guarantee you we’ll do the same thing we did to them at the other place. By the time we get to the town, we’ll have taken over the cab of the truck, killed the TKM lackeys driving it, and then put an end to this annoying woman once and for all.”

Almost as he said the last words, Nerio ran by.

“Come on, people, we don’t have all day.” She grabbed the handholds and climbed the side of the big rig like an expert. As the truck driver revved the engine and black smoke belched out the tall stacks on each side of the cab, she waved them by. “You three get on the back. Watch my six!”

“Yeah, us three will stay right where you tell us,” he mumbled.

He was shocked to see five other men scramble onto the flatbed at the same time. They went into the front doors of the twenty-foot-long shipping container, which was placed toward the front of the trailer. As he shuffled in after them, he realized it wasn’t built only for three people like the ones back at the soda ash plant. This one had three ports on each side, plus two on the back. It required those five extra guns to fire in all three directions.

One of the men shut the pair of doors with a loud clang. It sounded final to Ezra’s ears, as they were once again being backed into a corner. Surviving wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d bragged two minutes ago.

The truck lurched into motion.

Ezra had three miles to find a way out.

Chapter 18

Boulder, WY

Grace got on her phone the second the meeting was over. The rest of the Crow Nation was arriving on the gravel road and soon there’d be hundreds of people and a million things to do. The tribe was going to continue west toward the rock and force Petteri to give it up through sheer force of numbers. She wanted to support their effort any way she could, but first she wanted to talk to her dad.

The phone made some unusual sounds as it tried to dial the number, but then it started ringing. It rang at least ten times before it was picked up.

“Hello?” her dad answered.

“Dad? It went through!”

Her father laughed, but it was rushed. “Yeah, Grace, you got me. But, listen, I’m kind of in the middle of something. Tell me where you are. Tell me you’re safe.”

She glanced around at all the men and women with guns. “Yeah, I’d say I’m pretty safe. I’ve got about a hundred heavily armed Crow defending my gas station.”

“Gas station?” her dad replied with urgency. “Tell me exactly where you are.”

“Boulder. It’s a town—”

He cut her off. “I know where it is. I’m part of a convoy of big rigs heading right for you. From the south. Do you see us?”

She looked that direction, her brain synapses firing like a lightning storm. Why was her dad attacking her? What trucks? Should she warn someone? A glint of metal appeared in the contours of the land down the two-lane highway.

“Dad? What’s going on?”

“You have to warn your friends. TKM is hot to reinforce their town. It’s part of their grand strategy, or whatever. I can’t explain it all. You have to warn them!”

“But what about you?” she shot back. Asher stood close, trying to hear what had her so agitated. “We can’t shoot you.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll…” He seemed to think about it. “I’ll come up with an idea. Just protect yourself. Keep your friends safe. I have to go.”

“I love you, Dad.”

Asher caught her attention and acted like he was about to clap.

She kept talking. “Dad. You owe me one after this…” Grace nodded to Asher and he clapped once.

Ezra laughed. “I love you, too. I’ll bring my next clap to you in person.”

She hung up, stood catching her breath for a second or two, then launched into action. “There’s an attack coming! Get ready!”

Shawn was nearby, talking to what looked to be elders in his tribe. “What have you heard?” he asked, starting to limp her way.

She moved to meet him. “My dad called. He said TKM is coming from the south. Right now.” Grace pointed, now sure the gleaming metal was a semitruck. It was definitely on the highway. A second one came over the rise behind it.

Shawn and the others studied the south for a brief moment, which seemed to be all the time necessary for him to make up his mind. The Crow chairman yelled, “Everyone, get ready for an attack!”

Candy ran up with a pair of rangers. “What can we do?”

They’d asked Grace, but Shawn replied. “If you wouldn’t mind, can you drive out there and warn who you can?” He pointed to the line of trucks and cars hanging out on the gravel road. The TKM prisoners had left on foot long ago, but the remaining line of vehicles had been waiting to go to the west when Shawn said it was time. They’d need to know what was coming.

Grace and Candy shared a moment, as if the other woman wanted her approval to do as asked by a civilian. “My dad warned us about the attack. He’s on that convoy. If you can help Shawn, I’ll try to help my dad.”

The redhead looked at her and Asher. “You two take care of business here. We’ll take care of things out on the road.”

“Thank you,” Grace said, suddenly compelled to embrace Candy. “For everything.”

Candy hugged her back, then ran toward her truck.

Grace stood there for a second, marveling at how everyone was scurrying to their appointed spots. She had no idea what it would be like on a warship, but it might look a bit like the ordered chaos around her.

Her brief reverie was interrupted when the window of the convenience store imploded with a loud pop. Two more bangs rattled the gas station. One hit the wall with a thud. The other slammed off the steel bumper of a pickup truck, then deflected into a metal oil drum being used as a trash can.

As her dad had promised, an attack had begun. However, they’d been given enough of a warning. That trash can might have been someone’s head if they’d all been standing around gasbagging.

She grabbed Asher’s hand.

“Run!”

Outside Boulder, WY

The truck rolled along the highway, heading for the town where his daughter had miraculously appeared, and all he could think about was the clap Grace had sent through the line. He recalled the last real clap he got from Susan. Not the final one they shared, but the happy one she gave him when they were facing down Babs, the neighborhood busybody. Neither of them had any idea it would be the last in their longtime game. He understood why Grace had wanted to pick up where her mom left off, but he couldn’t bear to think she might have given him the final play in their back-and-forth, and that he and his friends would unwillingly be part of how she died.

Not on my watch.

He leaned close to Butch. “I need you and Haley to open the doors of the container in about thirty seconds. I’ll start this party when you do. You’ll want your rifles at the ready.”

Ezra’s mind reeled with what was about to happen. It would be far easier to sneak up behind each of the five men and kill them outright, perhaps using Butch’s knife to do it quietly. However, unlike the men he’d been forced to shoot in Christian’s container, he wanted to give these guys a choice. None of them were real soldiers, and this wasn’t a real war. Each of the civilian guards probably had stories about how they came to be there, and there might even be a father trying to get back to his daughter among them. He needed to give them a chance to exit the mission gracefully. As long as it didn’t unduly slow him down.

He’d moved to the far end of the container, pistol drawn. His heart fluttered like a hummingbird inside his chest. “Listen up!” he shouted. “Anyone who doesn’t want to die in the next ten seconds, walk out the front door and jump off the trailer.”

He pointed his pistol at the nearest man. The guy looked at him for a second, glanced at a couple of the other men, then laughed a little as he faced Ezra. “Are you nuts? There are seven of us against one of you. Don’t you want to get paid? We sure as hell do.”

“Actually,” Ezra countered, “there are three of us and five of you, but we already have guns pointed at your backs.” He motioned to the end of the box, where Butch and Haley guarded the doors. They were in the light, and still covered with splotches of dried blood, which made them appear like crazed serial killers, giving him a spur of the moment idea. “And the blood on our shirts is from the last bunch of guys who refused our offer.”

The lead man’s hands went up. “Whoa! Hey. We don’t want any trouble.” Luckily, the other men followed suit. A standoff would have taken time…and he didn’t have time to give.

Ezra hurriedly went on. “I’m giving you boys a chance to walk out alive. Drop your guns. Jump off the truck. You’ll still technically be in the fight, so you can still get paid. You also avoid the gunfight at the town where lots of people are going to die, so you’re welcome. I have only one demand. DO IT NOW!”

The men dropped their rifles, then filed out. Butch nodded confirmation when they’d jumped.

Ezra leaned heavily against the wall of the container, adrenaline draining. “I don’t know what I would have done if they’d refused.”

“It would have been messy,” Butch agreed.

He came out of the box, ready for the next task. “We have to get up to the cab of the truck. Any ideas on how to do it safely?” They were moving at about twenty-five miles an hour, as best he could guess. The crack of rifle shots echoed out in the rocky scrub lands, as if some of the men in boxes up ahead were already taking pot shots at the town. A civilian helicopter hovered low, a couple of miles out to their side, perhaps observing or even coordinating the attack. The five men he’d tossed overboard were already making their way in that direction, possibly thinking they’d flag down the aircraft.

Time continued to get away from him.

There was no time to overthink it. Ezra moved to the front of the trailer on the driver’s side. “I’m going to go this way. Butch, you go for the passenger door. Haley, you cover us.”

“Will do,” she said, clenching her rifle. “Don’t forget that bitch is up front. You’ve got to take her out, too.”

“Solid copy,” Butch replied, planting a kiss on the cheek of his overly fit partner.

Ezra hurriedly made the easy jump to the back of the red semi’s cab, but getting around the sleeper section appeared daunting. He’d need to grip a handle and swing his way over the cylindrical gas tank, then hold on to the exhaust piping until he could hop to the front step. There was no way to do it while holding a pistol.

“Crap,” he exclaimed, looking around for options. He could shoot out the tires in about five seconds, but he needed the truck to get to town. Disabling it wasn’t what he wanted. He took a deep breath, tucked his pistol in his belt, and lined up his approach. “Here goes nothing…”

He jumped.

Anticline Ranch, WY

After telling Dorothy and Aarons his plan, they both looked at him with indecision in their eyes. Was his plan exceptionally brilliant, or profoundly dumb? The former, of course. It took their simple minds time to process it.

“Well?” he asked.

“Sir, we have fifty engines ready to move the ore out on the train cars. We’ve kept the depot open. The tracks are open…”

Petteri rejected him with a brush of his hand. “I know all about the engines. I’m glad the depot is still open. It ensures my plan will work, don’t you think?”

Aarons stood by the map on the table. He eventually pointed to it. “Sir, we’ve noticed it’s very easy to spot vehicle movement on the dusty gravel roads of the anticline. I recommend you send a group of trucks here and here, to confuse the enemy and protect the convoy of ore.” He tapped the map on either side of a hand-drawn X, which marked the location of the asteroid remnant.

“Ah, brilliant tactical thinking,” he exclaimed, before tempering himself. “I was going to mention the same thing.”

The security man nodded.

“Get the trucks moving, Mr. Aarons. All of them. I want every bit of the remaining ore dug up and carried away as they evacuate.” There wasn’t much left on the ground.

“There are two hundred dump trucks, at least. It will take hours to move them all. What if the depot is gone by the time they arrive?”

Petteri shrugged. “That’s your problem, not mine. Make sure it doesn’t fall.”

“You want me to go to the soda ash plant?”

His plan depended on keeping the enemy from taking over the rail yard at the plant. Loading the hoppers would take time. Rolling the trains out would take even more. As long as those operations were ongoing, the enemy would be the cat chasing his laser pointer. Aarons was the only man he trusted to get the job done. On the other hand, he was also the only man Petteri trusted enough with his personal security. That had to take priority.

Petteri pretended to really think hard about it, before relenting. “No, I can’t spare you. You’ll travel with me in my mobile RV command center. However, before we go, I want you to get the decoy convoys set up as well as put your best men in charge of the defense of the soda ash plant. Promise to make those men billionaires if they can keep it open until the ore is out of this valley. If it all gets to my refinery in Canada, true wealth will flow like a volcano into the pockets of our trusted team members.” He looked into Mr. Aaron’s eyes. “That includes you.”

“I’ll do my best, sir.”

Craig reached the door before Petteri thought of one more thing he wanted to say. “Mr. Aarons?”

“Yes?”

“I’ve decided your beard isn’t so bad anymore. It’s been hard working with you after Howard, and the beard took some getting used to. However, like I said, it’s not bad.” He didn’t actually like it, but events had pushed him far beyond like and dislike. His compliment was one more brick in his ongoing efforts to cultivate a solid wall of loyalty.

Aarons gave him a martial salute, executed a curt about-face, then walked out of the ranch house. With the compliment in his pocket, Petteri was positive the man would go out of his way to prove himself worthy of being graced by someone so important.

All his attention returned to Dorothy. “Things are looking up, dear. Way up!” He was almost giddy looking at the roof and knowing what was in space above them. “What do you have for me from our little side project?”

She pointed to the land-based laptop screen. “The maintenance drones are on the move. They’re spreading out, heading for their re-entry windows. It won’t be long.”

It wasn’t much to look at on her screen. Eighteen little green dots flashed at the ends of dashed purple lines. A computerized sphere representing the Earth sat in the background. Small squares pockmarked the middle of a map of the United States like bad acne. Each square represented an impact point of his lost asteroid pieces. There were far more squares than dots, but he and Dorothy had picked out the biggest and best targets.

“As long as we are on for the fireworks?”

“We are, sir,” she smirked.

“Nothing can stop us now,” he said with relief.

Chapter 19

Boulder, WY

“Mr. Runs Hard, what are we going to do?” Grace and Asher followed Shawn and Logan into the convenience store. They went through the stock room and came out in a small patio area with about ten thousand cigarette butts scattered on the gravel nearby.

“We’re going to use our secret weapon.” He pointed up an aluminum ladder, which had been propped against the back wall.

“Up there?” she asked with confusion.

“Yep. I’ll go last, on account of my leg.”

Logan hopped on. “I’ll go first.”

“Follow him,” Shawn insisted, the playfulness gone.

Once on the roof, there wasn’t much time left for planning. The semitrucks were less than a mile away, though they were no longer advancing only along the highway.

“What the hell?” Asher blurted out, once he’d made it up the ladder.

“It looks like they’re spreading out…” Grace replied, not sure what to make of it. The first truck had turned left and driven onto the flat, rocky terrain out there. The next truck had slowed, and was lining up to exit the opposite side of the highway. Ten more eighteen-wheelers were behind those two.

“This is what I wanted to show you.” Shawn motioned her to the instantly recognizable Lahti anti-tank gun.

“But there’s no more ammo for it,” she said with disappointment.

“You have a lot to learn about the resourcefulness of the Crow Nation. We had three days to create the parts we needed to manufacture a hundred rounds of ammunition. We even made several of these fancy magazines to go with them.” He pointed to what looked like a picnic lunch next to the rifle. About ten shiny metal ammo boxes sat on a colorful blanket adorned with native symbols.

“That’s amazing,” she said in awe.

“And, to cap it off, we brought a bona fide US Army sniper. My nephew Tom here spent four years in Afghanistan. He has experience with old Russian arms, so this Finnish rifle wasn’t hard for him to master.”

A young man squatted near the end of the Lahti, surveying the gear on the blanket. He was darker-skinned than his uncle, with short black hair and a tightly-wound leather necklace. It looked like he’d lived his whole life outdoors.

“This isn’t the most accurate rifle,” Tom replied, without turning around. After peering over the wall a few moments, he cranked a hand-sized wheel on the right side of the huge gun, then picked up a magazine box. He carefully fit it into a matching hole on top of a blocky section of the weapon. She was fascinated by the loading process. Misha had done all that in the back of her truck, where she couldn’t see it. There was a loud click when Tom flicked something near the trigger, then he finally did look back.

“You might want to cover your ears,” Tom declared.

The heavy rifle had been set upon the two-foot high brick outer wall protecting the flat roof. Tom lined up his shot using metal barbs which hung over the left side, then squeezed the trigger. The concussion kicked up dust all over the roof.

“Truck hit!” he cried out.

A car alarm went off on the parking lot below as a result of the ground-shaking blast. She figured it had to be the one belonging to the store clerk.

Tom laughed. “I love setting off alarms with this thing!”

Grace ducked down, sure they would soon become prime targets. Logan and Shawn drew their rifles, anxious to join in. She and Asher needed to do the same, but she hesitated.

Tom fired again. The force of the gun blew her hair back.

“Dang,” she said with awe. “It seems even louder than when it went off inside my truck.”

Tom paused his shooting and glanced over to her. “You fired this from inside a truck? Sweet.”

She resisted taking the credit. “I didn’t fire it. I was driving.”

“On the move? Even more badass!” Tom smiled appreciatively, then looked down the sights again. “Firing!”

The next boom registered out in the field as the exposed gas tank of the third or fourth turning truck exploded. As she watched, the driver threw himself out the door, barely avoiding the plume of fire rushing around the side of his cab.

The truck rolled to a stop on the rocky ground, though it appeared as if the men in the shipping container weren’t going to leave. Their black rifle barrels stuck out from the side, firing like mad.

“Aim for the drivers!” Shawn yelled to the people on the roof with him.

It seemed like a safe thing to say. Grace knew her dad wouldn’t be driving one of the trucks, though she couldn’t say for certain if he was in one of the cabs with the drivers. That prevented her from shooting at all.

“What’s wrong?” Asher asked, immediately recognizing something was on her mind.

“Dad said he was coming to me. That means he’s in one of those trucks. If I fire on them, I could kill my own father.” She looked at all the other shooters, realizing there were already a hundred different guns aimed at her dad.

“Which one are you on?” she asked distantly, as if in a living nightmare.

Outside Boulder, WY

Prior to the asteroid disaster, Ezra wouldn’t have considered himself to be in peak condition. He was in his mid-forties, comfortable in his quiet life at the lake, and content to do low-impact activities with Susan. However, the past week had leveled up his fitness, as well as his mental acuity.

He needed both skills to jump to the handhold, grab it, and not fall off.

“Oof!” he cried out, despite knowing it might call attention to himself.

The side mirror for the big rig was huge, so the driver saw him right away. The TKM guy looked out with surprise at first, but then he began yelling. Red hair flashed on the far side of the passenger compartment. It meant Nerio was already aware of his presence.

Ezra lined up his next acrobatic maneuver. Ignoring the driver, he put his foot on the gas tank, then launched himself forward toward the steps up to the door. If the truck had moved six inches to the right, he’d have gone face-first onto the pavement. At least, that’s what he imagined in the brief moment in the air before he latched on to the door.

“Pull over!” he yelled.

He yanked out his pistol with one hand, glad he’d already cycled the round and had the safety off. Doing both with one hand would have been beyond his skillset.

“I said, PULL OVER!” He tried to use the same tone of voice that worked on the five men in the back, but he was outside, and the diesel engine overpowered most of his authority.

Looking forward, the trucks in the line ahead of him were splitting apart. Some had turned to the right, out of his view. Others turned into the open ground to the left. It appeared their tactic was to get the containers a couple hundred yards outside of town, then turn them to the side like sailing ships, so they could lay fire onto the enemy fleet. There wasn’t much time before his driver would turn sideways, putting them both closer to the return shots coming from town.

He aimed the pistol and fired through the window, intending to put the round through the roof of the cab. The shattering glass sprayed all over him, causing him to duck reflexively.

Screams came from inside the truck. Female screams.

Ezra hopped to the top step, which allowed him a peek inside. When his eyes met those of the driver, he raised his pistol to the sill of the window.

“Stop this truck,” he said in a calm voice.

The guy leered as he yanked the wheel to the right. The door came open at the same time.

“Shit!” Ezra yelped, dropping his pistol as he latched on to the swinging door being carried outward by momentum.

The driver had to steady the rig, which flung the door right back toward the cab. It slammed hard, almost making Ezra lose his grip. The driver looked as if he was going to repeat the maneuver, but more loud shots ripped through the cab.

Butch appeared in the far window, behind Nerio, who was watching Ezra. They’d been together long enough to know each other’s silent signaling. When Butch flicked his head to one side, Ezra ducked.

More shots exploded inside the cab.

Nerio screeched in fury.

Ezra was about to pop his head up when the door flung open again. He was a bit more prepared for it, so he hung tight as it whipped around.

At the same time, the driver tumbled from the opening and slammed to the ground like a crash test dummy. They weren’t going faster than twenty, so it wasn’t instant death, but Ezra couldn’t miss all the blood on the man from being shot.

His door was swinging back in when someone shoved it.

Nerio tumbled through the opening, making a somewhat graceless exit from the moving truck. She carried her sniper rifle with her, and she protected it as she executed an impressive roll onto the shoulder. The redheaded woman rebounded into a crouching position by the time the flatbed trailer rumbled past her. Her black cat suit and gymnastics presentation accentuated her nine-lives survival skills.

The woman cursed at him in Spanish, though he didn’t understand a word.

He flipped her the universal bird as he climbed into the cabin.

Butch was already inside.

The truck was theirs.

Boulder, WY

The Lahti produced a sound approximately like two hammers striking her temples from opposite sides. Each time it went off, she winced in pain. How Tom could lay there and repeatedly fire the gun was a testament to his skill. For her part, she tried to tune out the war going on around her and instead look for clues where to find her dad. She had Asher on the same task.

“He’ll give us a sign, I’m sure of it. He’s probably in one of those containers, shooting up the bad guys.”

Asher answered. “I don’t see anything of—” A bullet zinged by, creating a whir of air that seemed close. They both ducked down. Ten more rounds plinked off the store’s sign near the front of the roof.

He continued, brushing his curly hair back. “Wow, almost got a free haircut there. I don’t see anyone out there signaling us.”

“It might not be obvious. We have to keep searching.” She raised her head above the cinder-block wall. Almost immediately, she noticed the red truck at the end of the line swerve on the road, then straighten back up.

He saw it, too. “Could that be him?”

They watched as a man hung on the side of the cab, using the door to swing out, then back in. Then the man swung on the door a second time.

“What the hell?” she blurted.

A different man fell from the truck. Even from a quarter of a mile away, the impact of the body on pavement sickened her. Still, the first man hung on to the door as it slowly closed again.

A second person fell out of the truck. She also noticed a man hanging on to the door on the other side of the semi. He’d been there all along, but the truck had been shifting directions, blocking him from her view. “That’s him swinging on the door,” she said, somehow knowing.

When the two men climbed into the cab, she was prepared to swear to it.

“Mr. Runs Hard! I know where my dad is.”

Shawn stopped firing his rifle and glanced over his shoulder. “Where?”

She motioned toward the red truck. “The last tractor-trailer. He took it over. I saw him push the driver out just now.”

Shawn laughed with a little disbelief. “Is your dad an action hero? It sounds far-fetched.”

Grace didn’t back down. “We’re firing guns at trucks from a gas station in western Wyoming. An asteroid full of money is being controlled by a madman. What part of this sounds normal?”

He flashed a good-natured smile. “I was only asking. It’s my job to be sure. I believe you.”

They all watched the truck. At first, it slowed way down, as if the driver couldn’t get the engine working. However, it soon sped back up to racing speed, which brought it alongside the next truck in short order.

Instantly, the overtaken truck started to swerve. Its tires shredded as someone on the red truck fired at them. It was difficult to make out from where they were, but it appeared as if there was someone in the shipping container. The two men in the cabin of the truck kept their heads down.

“It’s them for sure,” she said with pride. “He said he was traveling with two other people. The guy is in the cab with him. The woman is in the back. She’s the one ripping that second truck a new one.”

In a span of ten seconds, the stricken tractor-trailer had to brake and then stop. The front wheel was nothing but bare metal. It threw out sparks and it screeched loud enough to be heard from where she was perched.

“Okay, I believe you,” Shawn declared.

He tapped his son. “Logan, I need you to run down and tell the others for me. The red truck is our friend. Shoot everything except the red one. Got it?”

Logan pulled his rifle off the wall, acknowledged his father, then noticed Grace. He started to head off for the ladder, but then he stopped. “I’ll make sure no one hurts your dad. I know what it’s like.”

She smiled at him. “Thank you.”

Grace braced her rifle, facing Shawn Runs Hard. “Tell me how I can help.”

Chapter 20

Outside Boulder, WY

“Wow!” Ezra exclaimed after watching Haley shoot like a wild woman at the semitruck next to them. He’d pulled alongside the other vehicle, expecting to ram it off the road, but she’d done the job for him by shooting several tires flat while staying safely inside the shipping container.

“Only ten more to go,” Butch said in a calm voice. “Or maybe nine.” One of the trucks was already on fire, seemingly shot by someone at the gas station far in the town.

“Stay focused,” Ezra replied, taking his cue from the veteran.

“We’ll go for that one, next,” he said, pointing to the closest flatbed ahead of them. Like all the others spread out to the sides, it had pulled into the rocks off the highway. The men inside were no doubt laying down fire toward Boulder.

Ezra pointed to the shiny green sleeper cab. “I’ll pull us along its right side. We’ll use it as cover, so we don’t get shot by our friends. Get ready to cover me as I get out.” His pistol was lying on the highway behind him, and the cabin wasn’t large enough to wield his rifle, so he planned on getting out with it, and then he’d have it ready. Butch, however, had more room to use his rifle. He had it pointed at the floorboard as they rolled over the dusty rock.

“Careful, E-Z. Those boys in the container might be able to get you.”

He hoped and prayed the men inside the shipping containers would have no sense of what was happening behind them. As long as they hadn’t seen him run the other truck off the road, or throw Nerio and the driver out the door, he figured he was fine. Of course, she might have radioed to all the trucks, or perhaps the helicopter had been watching the entire show.

He had no time to argue with himself. He shifted down as he pulled alongside the green machine. He was surprised to see the driver already out of his truck, standing behind his front tire.

The guy saw him and waved him down. “They didn’t tell me I would be shot at!”

Ezra hopped down, casually unfurling his rifle. “What did you think was going to happen? You, uh, we’re carrying metal gun platforms into battle.”

The man looked like a professional trucker. Faded baseball cap. T-shirt with the American flag on it. Old jeans with a wad of keys looped under his belt. Ezra didn’t want to hurt him. He was old enough to be his father and wore a friendly face.

Bullets snapped off the rocks twenty feet in front of the truck. In response, the man crouched as low as possible. Ezra used the distraction to put his rifle next to the man’s chest. “I don’t want to hurt you, bud.”

The guy’s face turned to ash. “What is this?”

“It’s all a friggin’ misunderstanding. All of this. TKM has been lying to the world about what they’re doing with the asteroid pieces. They aren’t trying to help us. They’re trying to mine the ore and make money off our plight.”

“I see,” the driver said robotically.

A series of pops went off from behind Ezra. Pieces of rock and dirt spurted up near his feet, as if someone was firing at him from above.

On instinct alone, he threw himself against the side of the truck, next to the older man. At first, he thought the guy was going to use the moment to fight back, but Butch had appeared at the front bumper of the green truck. The driver was focused on the big man.

Butch yelled over, “They see you from the doors of the container. They don’t have the angle as long as you stay down there.”

Bullets smashed into the front lights of Butch’s position, underscoring that while they might not be able to shoot Ezra, they did have the angle on him.

A shape flashed in his peripheral vision. Ezra cocked his head back to see what it was, catching a quick glimpse of a young woman jumping from one flatbed to the next.

“What’s she doing?” Ezra murmured.

He was compelled to crane his neck and watch. Haley used her pistol to shoot the man standing at the door. The guy had never expected someone to come at him from the other trailer. He’d been focused on Butch and Ezra.

The wounded man dropped his weapon and fell hard to the trailer’s surface.

Haley then stood at the edge of the door, firing around the corner. She expended all her remaining rounds into the container, screaming like a feral hellhound the entire time. When her weapon clicked empty, she dropped it, ripped the rifle from her back, and sidestepped to the nearest gun port. In one quick motion, she shoved the barrel into the port and pulled the trigger five or six times. When done, she moved to the next one.

“Holy shit,” Butch said with admiration at the woman’s tenacity.

A man stumbled out the front of the container, gun in hand, searching for Haley; Butch put him down immediately.

Haley got to the third port on the side of the metal frame, put in more rounds, then took a breath. She looked back to Ezra, wiping sweat from her forehead. “Is Butch all right?”

He laughed tentatively. “Yeah, he’s fine. Are you?”

There was plenty of gunfire roaring around them, but none of it seemed to come from inside the container on the green truck. Haley had taken out all eight men, minus the one who came out the front. She squatted at the edge of the trailer, getting a better look at the prisoner. “I’m good,” she chuffed. “Is that the driver?”

Haley hopped off the trailer in one smooth motion. Her blonde hair was matted and sloppy, with flecks of dried blood melting again on her sweaty face. Her shirt was still drenched in death from their previous shooting incident.

The driver threw up his hands while gazing at her in fear. “I surrender, y’all. I surrender!”

Haley ignored the man and ran to Butch.

Love made people do wild and crazy things. He’d been sure Butch and Haley were interested in each other for the last several days, but Haley’s banshee-inspired killing spree sealed the deal. Those two were going steady.

Ezra moved away from the driver, intending to get Butch and Haley back in the truck. Maybe he’d congratulate them on finding each other. However, the moment he moved, a bullet struck the driver directly in his American flag shirt.

“Holy shit!” he blurted.

The bullet came from behind them. He turned and looked through the open space behind the cab. A redheaded woman was lying on the ground, a few hundred yards out. She had a freakishly big sniper rifle in front of her.

Nerio looked down her scope while giving him the finger.

Haley wasn’t the only woman who could go full banshee.

Boulder, WY

“Did you see that?” Grace asked everyone around her. Her dad had put his truck next to the other one and climbed down between the two. At the same time, a woman had jumped over and apparently shot everyone inside the shipping container. The woman then hopped down and hugged a huge man next to her dad. They were partially visible from her vantage point.

Shawn whistled. “I take it back. Your family is full of superheroes.”

“Yeah,” she said, appreciating what had taken place. She’d never seen her dad as a hero, not an action star, anyway, but doing what he did while people were shooting guns back and forth qualified for all kinds of medals.

However, before she could dwell on it for too long, she noticed her dad and his friends duck down. They pointed behind them, out into the wasteland south of the town. It took her a few moments to orient on the tiny shape far out there. “I think it’s the woman who fell out of the truck!”

“How can you tell?” Asher asked, squinting where she’d been looking.

She smiled at him. “Trust me. When I saw her fall out, I was thinking she was dressed in black, like that woman back in Rawlins. It wouldn’t be my bad luck unless she was now harassing my dad.”

“Nerio,” Shawn remarked. “Her name was Nerio. She tried to kidnap my son. If she’s out there…” The Crow leader looked into his small rifle scope, but seemed immediately disappointed. “I can’t hit her from this far.”

“Can the Lahti?” she asked.

Tom somehow heard her. She figured he’d be deaf by now. “Not likely. You see what I have to use for iron sights.” He gestured to the metal prongs sticking out the left side. “What’s worse, I’m down to about twenty shells. It would take me half that to dial in at such a range. Even then, I might not get her.” He looked over to Shawn. “I’ll try it if you want.”

Shawn didn’t give the order.

“I have an idea. I’ll be right back.” She motioned for Asher to follow. As she went down the ladder, she cobbled together the basics of a plan. When she reached her truck, parked under the awning of the gas station, she knew exactly what needed to be done.

“I can tell by the way you’re walking you’re going to do something with your trademark Grace Anderson defiance.” Asher kept up with her as she walked up to her driver-side door.

She put her hand on the handle. “Ash, you don’t have to go with me…”

Men ran back and forth around them. They’d fire a few rounds, then move somewhere else. It seemed very professional, despite their not being military men. There were also only a few injured, which pleased her.

Asher didn’t flinch. He backpedaled along the side of the truck, almost like he was doing a dance, then disappeared around the back. She met him as they both climbed inside.

“You aren’t going to try to talk me out of this?” she asked with surprise.

He chuckled knowingly. “I don’t even know what this is. All I know is…ugh, it sounds sappy to say. I just want to hang out with you, no matter where you’re going. And, if I’m being honest, I’m trying to work up some brown-nosing points with your dad so he’ll give me his blessing to begin courting you. I figure watching your back is the best way to do it.”

They both laughed.

“For your sake, I hope he says yes after all your effort,” she snarked.

She spun the wheel left and right to get off the parking lot, then she gunned the motor and accelerated toward the semitrucks. Her windows were down; the acrid smell of gunfire came in with the hot, dry air. There were also bullets flying around them. The first one popped into the hood.

Asher was as low as possible in his seat.

“We aren’t stopping for anything,” she said to reinforce her sense of bravery.

Lots of pops and pings zipped into her truck, but she reached the line of tractor-trailers in seconds, and the spigot of gunfire turned off. The men inside the boxes didn’t have the angle to shoot at her. She lifted her head as she drove by the pair of trucks where her dad was last seen, hair blowing like mad. Grace waved toward where she figured he was. For good measure, she sounded the horn to get his attention, though it came out as a wheezy blubber, rather than a proper honk.

“Jeez, even the horn is busted on this thing,” she remarked, rubbing the dashboard in sympathy. “I’m sorry for treating you like this, buddy.” It had never crossed her mind that the truck could have a name or personality, but she suddenly thought of the Chevy Suburban as a stubborn mule. Nothing could make him quit.

The truck might not have had a working horn, but the engine was still in prime condition. The speedometer reached sixty-five as she sped by the disabled flatbed and continued on toward the woman with the big gun.

“Might want to buckle up,” she cried out to Asher.

He scrambled into a sitting position so the belt would secure him.

A familiar voice came from behind her. “Let me get belted in before you wreck us.”

“Logan?” she shouted at him in shock. She was only surprised for half a second, though. It was her own fault for not checking for him before she started the truck.

“Hi!” he beamed. “I did my job for Dad. Now I’m going to help you.”

There was no turning back, even if she wanted. A bullet went through the front glass of the windshield, directly in the middle. It left a two-inch hole and passed out the windowless back.

Logan unbelted a second later and fell to the floor. “On second thought, I’ll take my chances down here.”

A second shot went into the motor. She had no idea where, but the jarring impact rattled the steering wheel. She stayed as low as possible, fearing the next bullet would have her name written on it. But she had to look over the top of the dash in order to keep her aim true.

“Almost there,” she declared.

Another blast crumpled the metal support on the left side of the windshield, a couple of feet in front of her head. The jolt also created a series of deep fissures across the lower half of the windshield.

She looked ahead.

The sniper left her rifle on the ground as she stood up.

“Here we go!” Grace declared.

Nerio wasn’t more than a few yards off the highway. She bounced on her feet, looking like a goalie who was trying to guess which way to jump. Grace slammed the brakes a second before leaving the pavement, trying to create confusion in Nerio’s head about where she was aiming. She used that final second to jerk the steering wheel hard to the left, which gave her a bit of extra turning power.

The black-clad woman made her move.

Grace felt the thump.

Chapter 21

Outside Boulder, WY

“What in the—” Ezra was struck dumb as he realized it was his daughter behind the wheel of the wrecked SUV barreling down the highway. “Grace?”

The universe seemed to stand still as he watched her go by, hair blowing behind her. She looked over once, for an instant, as if to assure him she was going to take care of something for him. But what?

“She’s going for the sniper,” Haley offered.

“That woman isn’t firing at us anymore,” Butch added, in a voice suggesting it wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

“I know,” Erza said dryly.

They watched the next few seconds as Grace’s SUV swerved around the out-of-commission flatbed a hundred yards away, then continued accelerating from there. The eight guards stood on and next to the flatbed, trying to get into the action at the town. However, they also got interested in her truck as it sped by.

“Shoot those men,” he ordered, pointing to the guys at the disabled flatbed, already lining up his first shot. “They’re aiming at my Grace.”

Ezra’s attack didn’t seem to strike any of them, but the guys retreated into their box, or under the safety of the trailer itself, which was enough for him.

“Watch it,” he willed Grace. “You’re going too fast.”

As Grace neared the sniper, the woman popped off the ground. Nerio scooted from side to side, awaiting Grace’s arrival, until she lunged to her left.

The SUV struck Nerio. She flew ten feet in the air, twirling a few times, as if dismounting a trapeze. Unlike her deft landing out of the semitruck, her second one was terrible. She slammed into the dusty rocks face-first as Grace skidded to a stop.

His full attention was on his daughter, at least until a round tore a hole in the side of the red truck near Ezra’s head. He ducked immediately.

“We’ve got company!” Butch yelled, pointing to the closest flatbed down the line. Two men squatted next to the flatbed, as if considering whether to shoot or run at him. He and his friends were easy targets from fifty feet away.

“Under the truck!” he yelled.

Ezra desperately wanted to see what happened to Grace, but he was pinned down by the pair of men. Perhaps they’d figured out he wasn’t with TKM. Whatever it was, he needed them gone before he could properly observe behind the battle. To test the waters, he leaned out from behind the big rear tires of the semi and took a quick peek.

Neither of the men saw him.

He looked over to Butch, who huddled with Haley almost between the two sets of rear tires. “I’m going to try to hit them. Can you fire while still under the truck?” From his position, he was unable to tell if there was enough clearance under the engine and front bumper.

Butch peered under there. “Yeah, I think I can make the shot.”

“Is there room for two?” Haley inquired, scooting closer to him.

“Not really. You keep an eye behind us.” Butch pointed back. “There are ten other gun platforms out there. The men could come at us from any which way.”

“You got it,” she said, patting Butch on the hindquarters.

He chuckled as he set up his rifle. “Don’t distract me!”

Though they were screwing around, Haley and Butch were deadly serious in their intentions. Butch sprawled out on the ground. Their female partner held up her rifle, scanning behind the truck. He was thoroughly impressed.

“I’ve got them,” Butch said quietly.

“I’m going for the shot,” Ezra replied, bracing himself for the look-around. “In three…two…one.”

He raised his rifle as fast as possible. His breath caught in his windpipe when he saw the man aiming right at him.

Butch fired once, then four more times in quick succession.

Ezra backed off without firing. The man popped off a round, which penetrated the sidewall of the tire he was using for cover. It violently exploded with a thunderous pop, nearly giving him a heart attack in the process.

“Holy shit!” he screamed.

“He backed off,” Butch yelled.

Haley checked out the blown tire, then looked at Ezra. “You okay?”

“I’m good,” Ezra replied, running his fingers through his hair, glad it was still on his head.

She went back to searching for threats.

“I missed him, E-Z. Sorry.” Butch stayed where he was, but he’d scooted back a foot or two.

“They have to know you’re there,” Ezra reasoned. “Don’t stay too long.”

He wished he had one of the grenades used by TKM to ambush Calvin’s convoy. While they were inside the shipping container, he’d noticed boxes of supplies, but he didn’t think to check what was inside. If the guys at the other truck knew there were grenades in there…

“Guys, be ready to run.”

“Where?” Haley replied, nervous.

“I’m not sure,” he said with total honesty. “But they might have grenades, like before.”

Butch scooted back another foot. “That’s good thinking, but we’re kinda stuck here.”

Ezra again wished he knew what Grace was doing on the highway, but the threat of being shot from the side, or having a grenade tossed at him, made him stay tethered to the moment.

The big man yelled, “They’re coming over!”

His thunderous heartbeat doubled as Ezra held himself against the back of the tire. If the enemy was on the move, he had no choice but to lean out and shoot.

For Grace.

He took a few shallow breaths, unwilling to waste another second. He kept one knee on the ground as he slid sideways, revealing himself enough to hold his rifle at the side of the tire. Four men were coming out from the side of their truck.

Blood pounded through his skull, making it hard to concentrate on what he had to do. He steadied the rifle in front of him, looked into the scope—

The lead man’s head disappeared from his body.

“Holy shitballs!” Butch cried out.

A blue shirt and a set of jeans crumpled to the ground like a rolling pile of bones.

The other men stopped instantly, looking around for what caused their friend’s decapitation. Ezra used the pause to line up his first shot, but the men couldn’t drop their rifles fast enough. They had their hands up as they stood in the middle of the field.

“That was a big G-D gun,” Butch cheered. “It was a deal-breaker for those assholes. Not that I blame them.”

For once, the ordnance advantage was on his side.

But he didn’t celebrate. Ezra came out of his hiding spot and looked out toward Grace. It wasn’t clear what was happening out there.

“Get in the rig,” he ordered. “We’re going to get my daughter.”

Outside Boulder, WY

Grace hopped out of the truck the second it came to a stop. Her hands were shaking and she could barely suck in a breath; she’d never hit a pedestrian before. Now, she’d done it on purpose.

“I’m going for it,” she said to Asher and Logan, though they were getting out, too.

Logan scrambled through the good door, stepping out as she ran by.

Nerio was a mess. She was on the hard shoulder of the two-lane highway, but looked like she’d been dragged across the rocks by a motocross bike. The truck had hit her hard, but it was the hard landing which seemed to have bloodied her the most. Her sniper rifle was thirty feet in the other direction, and the woman didn’t seem to have any other weapons in her tight-fitting uniform, so she was confident standing over her.

“You?” Nerio asked when she saw Grace come into her field of view. It appeared as if she couldn’t move her neck as she lay frontside down on the pavement.

“Don’t mess with the park service, lady. Everyone knows that.” She was feeling cocky. “And you dented my truck. I’m going to have to bill you for it.”

Nerio’s raised eyebrows conveyed her shock.

Asher and Logan walked up behind Grace, weapons drawn.

“You!” the injured woman spit out when she saw Logan.

He smiled. “Hey, what’s up? The Crow Nation called. That bumper mark in your hip is from my people. Especially my dad. He wasn’t too happy you tried to kidnap me.”

Nerio stirred, as if sheer force of will could repair her wounds. To Grace’s surprise, the woman did manage to move her neck, arms, and legs, but she wasn’t moving fast. “I’m going to kill you,” Nerio grumbled, looking only at Logan. “You killed my Alejandro.”

Logan wasn’t a kid who cowered in the face of adversity, but he seemed to feed off Grace’s cheeky attitude. “I guess you shouldn’t have been shooting at my friends. I only drove into your loser husband because you endangered them. My dad would say that makes what happened entirely your fault.” He laughed. “So, you should apologize to yourself.”

Grace motioned to Logan. “Let’s ease back, okay? We’ll take her to your dad.”

“Don’t bother,” Nerio exhaled. “My men are spread out as I planned. You can’t penetrate any of my bunkers, even with that big gun of yours. I reinforced the walls to withstand direct hits from armor-piercing rounds.”

She’d watched as Tom hit the shipping boxes. He’d found out fairly quickly he couldn’t punch through. It was when he switched to softer targets.

“You should have done the same for your drivers. I bet they’re all dead. The truck engines, too.” She looked back to where the rest of the battle was taking place. Only one of the big rigs was moving, though there was still a lot of shooting from the trailers. The crack-bang of the biggest gun on the battlefield continued to rage, too. The Crow sniper was making good use of his last twenty rounds.

Nerio coughed up some blood. “Damn you, Petteri. I was supposed to be relaxing at my villa down in Caracas. Come up and take over for Misha, he said. You’ll have more money than you can fit in a bank, he said. Typical lies.”

Grace wondered if she knew about the hitman. A surly part of her conscience, the section pissed at the woman for shooting at her dad, insisted she rub it in the woman’s face. “You might have taken over for Misha, but he got the better of you. He’s recovering in a hospital at this very moment.”

The redheaded woman had chunks of her bangs stuck in her eyes, but she didn’t move her hands to clear them. Instead, she slowly turned toward Grace and gave her a glare capable of turning most girls to stone.

“It’s true,” Grace said in a glib voice.

Nerio rolled her face into the concrete, seemingly oblivious to pain.

A semitruck approached from behind Grace, its engine rising and falling as the driver shifted through the gears. Maybe one of the enemy drivers finally figured out it was time to escape. Maybe—

Nerio rocked to her side, revealing a small pistol in her hand. The front of her top had a zipper down the middle, and she’d apparently pulled out the hidden weapon. “Don’t friggin’ move,” the woman said in her South American accent, pointing the gun at Grace’s face.

Grace lowered her rifle a little, but not all the way. If she gave up her advantage, a woman with no scruples might shoot her anyway. She had to keep her talking.

“There’s nowhere to go. You can’t shoot all three of us. We have the advantage.”

The redheaded woman finally wiped the lost bangs out of her eyes. She half turned, seeing the semitruck rolling down the highway toward her, then she waved at it. “I’m going to get on my truck and get out of this hellhole. Don’t try anything and maybe I’ll let you live.”

The truck was closing in fast. Grace hadn’t planned what to do with the woman when she drove over her. All she wanted to do was protect her dad. If the standoff led to Nerio escaping, but everyone else she cared about getting to live until tomorrow, she figured it was worth it. Still, she didn’t let her rifle barrel drop all the way.

“The truck’s not stopping,” Asher commented, as if trying to mediate.

“It’ll stop,” Nerio said with assurance, again waving her arm to flag it down. She stepped next to the yellow line of the paved lane, giving Grace an idea.

“Nope, it’s not,” Asher said again, maintaining his poise.

Nerio turned her head and sized up the truck. She seemed to calculate speed and distance, before turning back toward Grace. “Aw, the hell with it. I surrend—”

The assassin half crouched, whipped her tiny pistol toward Logan, and fired.

The truck was seconds away.

“No!” Grace shouted, hurling herself bodily against the other woman’s wounded side. She was only a few feet away from Nerio, so it happened in a flash. In that brief instant, Logan sent a round into the woman’s chest right before impact.

Nerio seemed to ignore the penetrating round, perhaps spending all her remaining hatred and focus on the Crow boy. She didn’t expect the shove, however. Caught unaware, Nerio took two steps backward.

The flat edge of the truck’s bumper caught her square on the thigh. Unlike being hit by the Suburban, she hadn’t prepared to dodge it, so she took the full brunt of the giant vehicle. Grace heard several bones crack, even as Nerio let out a brief yelp.

“Oh my God!” Grace yelled as the giant machine passed by only a few inches from her face. She balanced on the edge of falling forward until Asher grabbed her police belt and yanked her back to safety.

In one brief moment, she caught a glimpse of the driver’s hair.

The operator slammed on his brakes and locked up the tires with loud, big-dog barks. When the heavy machine came to a halt, Nerio’s body slid forward another twenty or thirty feet.

“Thanks, Ash,” she said with a huge smile. “I know who it is.”

She ran down the highway to where the driver had come to a stop. The man behind the wheel smiled down at Grace as he opened the door, looking as surprised as she about how they were meeting.

“Hey, honey,” he said with a friendly wave.

“Dad!” she cried out with relief.

Chapter 22

Outside Boulder, WY

After Ezra watched the TKM man’s head get removed, the tone of the battlefield changed entirely. Those closest to the victim threw up their hands, desperate not to meet the same fate. The guards in the shipping units nearby also stopped firing, perhaps knowing the trucks were out of commission and they were trapped. Many of the others gave up, too. The ceasefire provided an opportunity for him to get in the semi, quickly turn it around, then race toward Grace.

Along the way, he couldn’t see what was happening other than his daughter was out of her truck, standing next to highway talking to the sniper. Reading the situation, he judged that he needed to get there as fast as possible. However, when he was about to hit the brakes and stop, the sniper-woman pulled out a gun.

“Grace!”

Ezra held his breath as he willed the truck forward. There were four people standing in a clump. It would be dangerous to try to hit the sniper; he might also clip Grace. Events, as always, quickly went out of his control.

The woman fired her gun.

The boy returned a shot from his rifle.

Grace lunged for the redheaded sniper.

“No!” He crushed the brake pedal, sure Grace and the sniper were both going to be struck by his anvil of steel. The impact barely made an impression on him. Instead, he bounced up and down as the brakes fought to hold the ground.

“Did I hit her?” he asked, barely aware Butch and Haley were in the passenger seat together.

Once stopped, he quickly kicked open the door to see what he’d done.

His little angel stood there, looking up at him.

Air rushed into his lungs as if a dam had collapsed. Composing himself, he tried to think of something to say that would dispel the fear still draining out of him.

“Hey, honey,” he said with his friendliest wave.

“Dad!” she replied.

Butch and Haley expressed relief, but he was out the door before they could say anything. In his haste, he slid off the top step, clumsily catching himself on the lower one. Then he tried to recover as he stepped down to the pavement.

“Whoa!” Grace said with surprise. “Don’t get hurt at the victory parade.”

She held out her arms to meet him and they hugged for half a minute. She squeezed his midsection so hard, he thought she was trying to choke him. When he pulled back to look at her face, she was in tears.

“I’m sorry I almost hit you. That woman—”

“No, it’s not that. It’s Mom. I’m sorry she didn’t make it. I’m sorry you lost her.”

Ezra didn’t know how to react, until he remembered Susan had sent him out west to be with their daughter. To heal their family. It was a miracle to be standing there with her again. Instead of trying to think of a profound response, he pulled Grace to his chest and held her tight.

After a short period of time, a young man tapped him on the shoulder.

“Excuse me, sir. Sorry for disturbing you, but you two should move in front of the truck, rather than next to it. There are still a few guys shooting from their shipping containers back there.”

Ezra looked over to the guy. He was a park ranger, like Grace. Or, he remembered, he was dressed to look like one. “You must be Asher Creighton. I’ve heard a few things about you on the calls with my daughter.”

“All good, I hope?”

Grace separated herself from Ezra. She looked at Asher, laughing. “You were with me the whole time. You know what I said to him.”

“Oh, right.” Asher turned away as if embarrassed, but he kept looking at the other person who was with them. He soon pointed to the boy’s leg. “You’ve been shot!”

They all gathered around a boy they introduced to him as Logan. His left pant leg was covered in blood, but he continued to stand up, and only seemed a bit bothered by it.

“Oh, it’s nothing. I’ve had worse wounds. I fell off a horse once. You know, it’s not true what they say about Crow being natural riders. Calvin Tames Horse, my butt. His instructions sucked.”

Grace made him sit down on the front bumper, but on the opposite side from the dented and bloody portion. At the same time, Butch and Haley came around, apparently intrigued by the family reunion.

“E-Z, is that your daughter? I see the family resemblance.”

Ezra gave him the “shut up” sign across his own throat, which Grace noticed.

“It’s okay, Dad. I’m fine with it.”

“You are? You always hated it when people pointed that out.”

“Not always,” she said in a reasonable voice, also tending to the boy. “Just in my angry teen phase. I’m happy to be your daughter again. Especially today.”

He’d never heard a better sentence in his whole life.

“I can’t tell you how happy I am this is over,” he said with satisfaction.

Outside Boulder, WY

“It’s not over, Dad. Not by a country mile.” Having grown up in western Kentucky, she was fond of using the phrase.

Her dad looked around. “We stopped the men in the trucks. The shooting is dying down. Soon your friends in the town will have complete control of this place.”

On cue, her phone meowed. Her dad’s friend, a guy bigger than anyone she’d ever met, laughed out loud.

She answered it. “Hello?”

“I see you’ve survived the battle. Good job.” It was the same mystery man as before. She looked around the area, wondering if the man was spying on her from nearby. However, when there was nothing obvious out there, she looked up. A helicopter swept low about five miles away. There was also a little airplane flying high above, making no sound that she could tell.

The man chuckled. “Yep, I’m watching from up here. I can see you, the Native kid, and your boyfriend. I don’t know the others.”

“What do you want?” she asked, not wanting to give away her dad.

“You need to move fast. Petteri is sneaking his asteroid out of the valley right this instant.”

“How do you sneak a five-story asteroid out of a flat valley with no trees?”

“Who is it?” her dad whispered.

She held her hand over the mic. “It’s someone who’s been helping us. I don’t know his name—”

She let go so she could speak. “Who are you, by the way?”

The man hesitated. “I’m Jake Ray.”

She’d heard the name before. It was someone Misha had mentioned. “Jake Ray?”

Asher tapped her on the arm. “He’s the guy Misha told us about!”

“You’re Misha’s friend. He said we should look for you when we got to the dig site. Did you know he sent us?”

“I know now. He and I have, uh, done some work together. I gave him some pointers about how to conduct his security at Petteri’s dig site. Let’s simply leave it at that.”

“Well, Mr. Ray, if Misha trusted you, I’m willing to trust you as well. If you say Petteri is sneaking his rock out of this valley, I’ll believe you. But what can we do about it?”

Ray sniffed. “To stop him, all you need to do is go north and block the highway. There’s nowhere else he can go with it. But you’ll have to leave now. He’s already on the move.” A disturbance took place on the other end of the line. Jake spoke to someone, then hung up.

She held the phone for a few seconds, then let it drop.

“What happened?” Asher and Dad asked at the same time.

“He had to go. Sounded like he was with someone else.”

“What did this person want?” her dad asked with skepticism.

“We have to go north to stop Petteri from sneaking his rock out of the valley.”

“North?” he asked. “I know this will be hard to believe, but I spent some time this morning south of here at a railroad terminal. TKM has hundreds of hopper cars lined up, ready to take ore on the rails. We were part of the defense of the place, in fact. Honey, I think Jake might be playing you.”

A huge red SUV skidded to a stop next to the semi, catching everyone’s attention. A man shouted from the passenger seat. “Logan!”

Grace stood up, recognizing the voice immediately. “Your son is fine, sir. He’s injured, but not too bad.”

Shawn Runs Hard came out of his truck and hobbled over to his son. The driver, Logan’s mother, Tyressa Runs Hard, came out at a run.

“I’m okay!” Logan said, trying to stand.

Grace didn’t bother stopping him. She’d torn a piece of Logan’s shirt to make a bandage and seen Nerio’s bullet had only grazed the outside of his shin. He’d be fine.

While everyone took turns introducing each other, and Logan’s parents doted over their wounded son, she kept thinking about Jake’s message. Why would he send her north when, to her logic and her dad’s, it would make far more sense that the ore would go south, by train. After a few minutes of the meet and greet, she got them all back to business.

“Mr. Runs Hard, I have to share a phone message I got just now. A TKM spy told me Petteri Tikkanen is stealing the ore by driving it north. I’m not sure how, but it’s what he said.”

Shawn seemed to think on it for a few seconds, then he lumbered over to the front of the big rig, so as to see to the west. After seeming to mystically commune with the land, he made an observation. “See the dust?” He pointed southwest.

Many miles away, dust hung in the air as if a great storm of it had kicked up in that part of the valley. It looked like the dust plumes created by the trucks coming out of the mountains earlier. It was probably why Shawn noticed it.

“I see it, yeah,” she said dryly.

“Petteri is going south toward his railroad depot. My brother was supposed to attack it, though I have no idea if that ever took place.”

Her dad interrupted. “You’re Shawn Runs Hard! We ran into your brother.” He hesitated. “Actually, I’m embarrassed to say this, but we almost got him killed.” Her dad went into a short explanation of being picked up by Calvin Tames Horse, him stating he was Shawn’s brother, then being attacked by TKM. He went on to explain how they barely survived when he and his friends were swooped up by the mining team since they thought the three of them were employees of the company. Butch and Haley both added how her dad had personally saved the lives of Calvin and a young girl named Fern.

Shawn seemed relieved. “I know Fern. I will have to learn more about those who perished when the time is right. However, if my brother is still alive, then perhaps the attack is still happening. I must help him. That’s where I have to go.”

“There was an attack down there this morning. I don’t think it took the place over, though. At least not in the time I was there. It was a near-run thing. However,” he looked to the dust clouds to the southwest, “I have to admit the attack might have failed if that dust storm is any indication. TKM is still taking their trucks south.”

She didn’t like where things were headed. Both her dad and the Crow leader were in agreement where the point of the attack was taking place. Should she believe them, or a guy on the phone?

Grace turned to Asher. “What do you think we should do?”

He shrugged. “I’ve been hanging with you since Yellowstone. You’ve made some good calls, and some bad ones, but you’ve always put thought into your plans. I’d say you keep doing what you’ve been doing. Trust your gut. I’ll follow you wherever you go.”

She steeled herself for disagreeing with her dad.

But when she turned to him, he was all smiles.

“What?” she asked.

He pointed to Asher. “I like this young man. He’s got a good head on his shoulders. If you think we need to go north, and he does, too, then that’s where I’m going.”

She shared a knowing look with Ash.

“Let’s go north,” she declared.

Grace felt elated to have her father’s support, but she could tell by Shawn’s expression he wasn’t convinced. He quietly walked over to be with Logan and his wife, then he turned to her. “I’m sorry, but the Crow Nation cannot operate based on an anonymous source on your phone. I have to lead my people to the south. I must help my brother and the men and women expecting me.”

“I totally understand,” she replied.

Shawn and his wife nodded to each other, then gently held Logan’s arms. Shawn turned to Grace. “Our son has behaved honorably since you found him in Billings. We are grateful you came into our lives. The Crow Nation thanks you for showing us what was possible fighting against the powerful TKM corporation. However, this time we’re going to physically restrain him until you drive over the horizon.”

Logan figured out he was being held back. “Aw, Dad, come on. You’re embarrassing me.”

Shawn chuckled. “That’s what fathers do.

Petteri’s Mobile Headquarters, WY

Dorothy was giving him a report as he watched the natural gas field pass by in the window of his oversized RV. “It looks like all the trucks are on the move. We’ve got two hundred regular-sized dump trucks, five Caterpillar 797s we brought in from one of your local quarries, and two dozen long-bed haulers. Those, plus the rock we’ve already cleared out on other shipments, means we’ve gotten all but the rump of the asteroid.”

“The engineering team has outdone themselves,” he replied, feeling better than he had in days.

“And, as instructed, the orbital repositioning is almost completed. Up until this point, it only looked like we were moving our maintenance ships as part of our normal operations, but now they’re spreading out and heading for their drop windows. I figure we have about two hours until they strike.” Dorothy seemed to consider what to say before adding. “Do you think now is the time to put out a press release saying we’ve been hacked and are unable to stop what’s taking place up there?”

“How would you word it?” he asked, truly curious how her mind worked.

“I would immediately condemn Ms. Torres as the culprit for this terrorist attack. Make her the target of the world’s ire. Make yourself into the hero.”

“That’s what I tried to do for the other rocks. I sent supplies to shield what we were really doing at each one. I suppose it could work for a while. Old tricks are the best ones, right?”

“This is the time, sir. I see on my screen that our troops are giving up near Boulder. They’ve been stopped.”

“What?” he said with surprise. “And Nerio?”

“Dead. We have drone footage showing it. I’m pulling it up now.” She clicked some buttons on her laptop, then showed him a ten-second overhead video of a big rig slamming into his assassin.

“A shame,” he said, partially meaning it. “But we can use this to our advantage. Go with your press release. Mention we’ve already stopped the terrorist leader in our ranks, but we’ve lost control of the spacecraft thanks to Ms. Torres and Deidre Creighton in mission control. We’ll pretend to throw all our resources behind the recall procedure.”

They laughed together. One minor setback allowed him to take two powerful steps forward. It was all coming together.

He relaxed in his leather chair. The RV had a small table surrounded by comfortable benches. It was built as part of some Wyoming politician’s re-election campaign, which Petteri contributed to heavily, including some off-the-books help against his clueless opponent. He didn’t feel bad demanding its use while he was in the state.

Aarons was in another compartment up by the driver, so for the moment, he and Dorothy were alone. Thinking about the political hit-job made him realize it was becoming his modus operandi. He’d run the same con on a much larger scale with someone familiar to his helper.

“You know, you asked me once about Mr. Stricker. What I have over the idiot that keeps him in my pocket?”

She nodded, suddenly interested.

“I have many subsidiary companies under the TKM umbrella. Finance. Marketing. Art. Transportation. The needs of a global business empire are insatiable. None of it can be left to chance when dealing with the government. Especially when locking horns with the federal gorilla.” He didn’t think she noticed his mixed metaphor.

“Makes sense,” she agreed.

“So, in the case of our mutual enemy Stricker, I waited until he took a trip to a third-world country, had my friends find the right people there, and then I set him up.” He said it with excitement, as if revealing his methods would thrill both him and Dorothy.

“How?” she said, jaw hanging open. “He’s, like, one of the most powerful men in the government.”

“Resources, my dear. All of this comes down to resources. No one on Earth has more of them than I do.” He leaned over the small table, speaking quietly. “I had some intel operatives run a sting on him. We drugged him, dumped him in a local brothel, sprinkled in some young-looking women, and a few young men for good measure, then took a million pictures of him.”

She seemed disappointed. “So, when he woke up, you convinced him he’d done some bad things the previous night. It sounds ham-handed, like a TV show. He was innocent, right? A guy like him would know for sure he didn’t do anything illegal. He’d know it was a setup.”

Petteri knew Dorothy was about to have her mind blown.

“I didn’t tell you the best part.”

Chapter 23

North of Boulder, WY

“You sure about this?” her dad asked, once they were on the road. “That dust storm down south sure looks juicy. A whole fleet of dump trucks could be underneath. Your Crow Nation friends might end this battle after all.” He pointed to the second giant plume of dust, which was created by the speeding trucks of Shawn and his people as they raced into the middle of the valley both to reclaim the dig site as well as confiscate the ore in those trucks.

Secretly, she hoped they would find Petteri and put an end to him, but Misha wouldn’t have put them in touch with Jake Ray if it wasn’t for a reason. She had to trust her old enemy wouldn’t steer her wrong. “If they don’t show, I’ll be the first to say I’m wrong. However, I don’t think I am.”

Asher touched her dad on the shoulder from the back seat. “You probably don’t know this about your daughter, but she can be very stubborn.” He cracked up as soon as he said it.

Her dad chuckled, too. “I did know that, in fact. It seems hanging out with you has made her even more hardheaded, so thanks.”

Haley and Butch sat directly behind Grace. Butch, perhaps sensing the mood had lightened after leaving the deadly fight for Boulder, reverted to his old self. “I want to commend you on what you’ve got going on with this truck. It reminds me of Susan’s Grace, in fact, which makes sense given the family ties.”

The big guy laughed, but Grace did not. She looked over to her dad. “Susan’s Grace?”

Dad bowed his head. “The pontoon boat. I named it after your mother. She watched over us as we traveled out here. I’m sure of it. Unfortunately, I lost the boat back in Kansas City. It was blown up, actually.”

She didn’t want to get him down, so she half turned toward Butch. “Thanks for keeping an eye on my dad. We all need good friends during these weird times. Asher is my number one, but this truck is my number two.”

Asher and Butch laughed uproariously. Dad was laughing quietly, too.

“Oh, come on!” she complained. “Not everything is a poop reference!”

Dad sobered up. “I believe you, Gracie. Always. What’s up ahead? Where do you think Petteri might go?”

They were headed for the pass. There was still no dust on the gravel road in the northern part of the valley, so it became easier to doubt Jake Ray had been correct about where Petteri had gone. If the trucks were already over the top of The Rim, it would be hard to stop them since there was only one road through Jackson, the Tetons, and Yellowstone. To get in front of them, they would have to turn around, go back through Boulder and Green River, and then drive in a huge arc around Yellowstone. With luck, they could meet up with them somewhere in Montana, but it would not be easy.

“The pass up there,” she replied. “We have to reach it first. If not, we’ll never get him. It’s not far up this road.”

Grace took stock of her allies following in trucks behind. Candy and her fellow rangers had rallied the Crow women along the gravel road and prevented them from walking into the ambush. Taking the initiative, they even managed to knock out one of the shipping containers on the eastern edge of the battle. Carson and Rocky had survived the shootout by staying in one of the shipping containers in the mock trailer park. By all indications, the pair of older men had the time of their lives shooting outward to defend the rest of the arriving Crow vehicles.

Her dad was full of questions. “Are there trees around there? Maybe we can knock them over the highway? Is the pass very steep, like on a mountainside? That might give us options. Better yet, are there rockslides we can dump on the road? Boulders would stop anything.”

She tried to think about the terrain at the top end of the valley. It was practically flat along the highway, rather than a narrow mountainside pass like the word suggested. The mountain ranges were visible from up there, but the snow-capped peaks were still ten miles away on either side. Her dad was on the wrong track thinking the pass would offer anything. However, there were lots of burned trees up there, but it was impossible to say if they could be knocked across the pavement. They’d run into fallen trees earlier in their journey, and she’d always been able to drive around them.

Her dad kept talking before she could address his concerns. “I should have brought the semitruck. We could have used it to knock those trees over. It would give us some horsepower, at least compared to this one.”

Grace dipped into her thoughts for the next few minutes, but she stole a glance out her window to see if the dump trucks were visible out in the broad valley. Since they were nearing the highest point, she figured a line of them would be obvious from miles away. If nothing else, the plume of dust would be impossible to miss.

“Oh, shit,” she drawled.

Everyone looked to see what had her attention. Due to the undulations of the terrain, it was hard to see much of the gravel road. There was no long line of dump trucks, as she’d expected. There wasn’t even any dirt in the air. However, five giant yellow machines rolled north, seemingly by themselves.

“Those are the biggest dump trucks I’ve ever seen,” Haley said from the back.

“What are they doing out there?” Butch asked, mirroring Grace’s thoughts.

The behemoths came out of a low spot in the terrain, leading more dump trucks behind them. By comparison, the regular-sized haulers seemed tiny. It was like a gaggle of ducklings following their yellow mothers. Above, hard to pick out due to their distance away, she observed several helicopters buzzing around, watching over the convoy.

She suddenly knew one thing with certainty.

“They haven’t made it out.”

The Rim, WY

Ezra couldn’t think of a time he’d been as proud of his daughter. Maybe when she graduated college, which was the culmination of a lot of shared toil and treasure for him, Susan, and Grace. But even that didn’t compare to seeing her operate in the real world, around new people, and in high-stress situations like a gunfight. Now she’d used her intuition and critical thinking to listen to the right person on the phone. They were going to beat the TKM convoy to the pass.

But not with much time to spare.

They sped as fast as the SUVs would go in order to beat TKM to the junction. The giant ugly duckling trucks weren’t moving nearly as fast, but they were only a few minutes from the same junction as Grace and her friends sped by. A few saplings grew around the intersection, as trees returned to the landscape.

“How the hell are they not creating any dust?” Haley wondered aloud from the back seat. “Vehicles that large should be putting out tornadoes for a smoke screen. It was bad enough back in St. Charles when they were doing road construction on the interstate. We’d have dust in our house for weeks.”

“Maybe the rock is different in the northern part of the valley,” Asher replied. He was a geologist, Grace had once mentioned, so he’d probably know better than anyone. Based on his tone of voice, though, he didn’t seem convinced he was right.

Grace looked over to him, eyes searching for help. “Dad, what do we do now? How are we going to stop those huge things? Even trees won’t be enough.” She looked into the back seat where Asher, Butch, and Haley were sitting. “Anyone have any ideas?”

“Big ideas,” Butch lamented, “for big trucks.”

“Well,” Ezra began, “when we were on the boat, there were certain bridges where the enemy knew we’d have to pass. They waited to ambush us there. We could do the same thing if you know of chokepoints where we can block them. A river crossing. A part of a town with narrow streets. Anywhere that gives us an advantage against their size. Think.”

“We did cross bridges,” Asher mused, “but how will they help us? Those trucks could roll right over us, even if we blocked the entire bridge. We’d have to blow it out from under them to be effective.”

“Not gonna happen,” Butch lamented.

Ezra looked at his friend, which prompted him to explain.

“Bridges are tough to blow up. We had special engineering teams in the military. Even they sometimes needed two tries to blow a bridge.”

“That’s what I thought,” Ezra said, returning his eyes to the front.

“Other ideas?” Grace pressed as they drove on. “I wish Shawn and his people had come with us. They’d probably have some high plains trick to stop the trucks we’d never think of. They always seemed to know what to do.”

Ezra turned again to his buddy. “Butch, would it be better to ambush them at a bridge, or somewhere they’d never think of it, like in the trees?”

Butch answered immediately. “The trees. The bridge would offer better constriction, but we don’t have the manpower to stand out in the open and force them to stop. If we keep to the trees, they won’t know how many of us there are.”

“There aren’t any live trees for a long time,” Grace replied. “Everything is burned for the next thirty miles or so.”

They drove the highway for a few more minutes, passing a growing number of small trees and seeing the return of green grass and undergrowth. However, as they approached the small tourist turnout lot, the trees became black and stunted. A bit farther along on the right, they passed a blackened pile of lumber for a shop called Rim Station.

“This is the pass,” Grace said sadly. “We’ve been here before. It still looks like hell.”

The tops of the trees had been sheered off, probably by the same shockwave that had thrown his boat out of the water so long ago. The fire had burned everything, including the underbrush on the ground.

“Grace, what do you think about stopping right here?”

“At the pass?” she said, taking her foot off the gas.

“Yeah. The tree trunks are thick. Not even those huge trucks could break through them. There isn’t enough room for them to go around a roadblock on the highway.”

“But all we have is trucks. That’s not going to stop them, either.” Grace had slowed considerably, suggesting she was warming up to his idea.

Ezra pointed to the side of the road. “We’ll never find anything large enough to block them. We’ll have to use our brains instead. The trees will give us cover. It gives us options. We’ll think of something.”

His daughter smiled broadly. “All right.”

She slowed and turned the truck sideways, blocking a little of both lanes. Once stopped, she hopped out and instructed the other drivers to pass on each side of her and form two lines, one in each lane, to block the most real estate. There were nine vehicles from her park service friends, along with the two other pickups, driven by Rocky and Carson. In minutes, she had them all parked together as one long blockage.

As he’d thought before, he’d never been prouder of her.

Before he could tell her, the low growl of heavy engines came in on the breeze.

“They’re coming,” he said seriously.

The Rim, WY

Petteri was chuffed to see his plan working so well. He’d gone to the front of the RV so he’d have a better look at the five gargantuan dump trucks leading the procession. In front of them, almost impossible to see, several tanker trucks sprayed water over the gravel road, eliminating all the dust those giants would normally kick up. He’d sent non-essential personnel to the south, instructing them to spin their tires and make as much air pollution as they could manage. It was a ruse designed to trick the Crow idiots and their allies so they would all travel south to the railhead. Once there, they would find nothing but empty coal cars.

Trains! What idiot would depend on a train parked inside a warzone? There was only one possible course it could take, and a train could be stopped by removing a few spikes and moving one rail. He wasn’t going to risk his entire fortune on such a vulnerable transportation system, at least not the one at the soda ash plant.

By contrast, using dump trucks made sense on every level. First, no one would expect him to drive them all the way to Canada. Second, no one would expect him to have all of them staged and ready to go when he did. And finally, there was nothing but burned-out forest and abandoned towns between the dig site and the open sky of Montana. He’d be out of Wyoming and halfway across Montana before anyone knew what he’d done. The world would be so busy watching nukes blow up major cities, they’d be even less inclined to care about him and a few old construction trucks.

“I have to hand it to you, sir,” Mr. Aarons said from his mobile workstation, “this has all worked out flawlessly, despite Nerio losing her freaking mind. The networks are going crazy about your press release and how nuke-powered spaceships are going to be raining down in a couple of hours. This is madness.”

“I tried to save those poor people,” he lied for the sake of his RV driver. “By helping them evacuate the strike zones before her evil ways could kill them.” When the inquest into the disaster inevitably launched, and everyone was questioned by the authorities, his driver would only remember Petteri’s concern about the victims. Dorothy was the only other person on Earth who knew the truth about how the nukes fell out of space.

Petteri watched as they passed the tanker trucks. They’d parked at the end of the gravel road where it met the pavement. Their services were complete. Though they probably wouldn’t see him, he waved at the drivers. Always keeping up appearances.

“Now,” he said, clearing his throat, “we’re on the road that will carry us north to our refuge in Canada. From there, we can monitor everything.” It was dangerous to travel with the convoy, as opposed to in his chopper, but Dorothy had smartly warned him about civilian drones flying through the air. She’d also told him a story about a Crow pilot who’d flown an old biplane crop duster into a federally-funded electrical pylon, which was part of a hydroelectric project in Nebraska. That was decades ago, when the Crow didn’t have such good relations with the feds. However, she said they still carried that suicidal gene to this day.

In short, it was much safer to be an anonymous traveler on the ground, rather than risk being in the air. He did plan to meet his helicopter when he got to Jackson. He planned to check on some things in Idaho, then fly on to his refinery in Canada.

Jackson was still abandoned, his agents reported, and there was no Crow presence within fifty miles of it. Dorothy thought he’d probably be fine taking off from there, though she practically begged him to take her, too. Apparently, driving cross-country was not her thing. It wasn’t his, either.

His contentment lasted five minutes. The yellow hulks slowed and then stopped ahead of him. Aarons listened on his headphones, then took them off so Petteri could hear.

“This is the driver, sir,” Aarons whispered.

“As I said, I can’t risk damaging this 7-9-7. I’m responsible for it.”

Aarons turned to him, looking worried. “The lead truck driver says there’s a roadblock up ahead. I told him to run over it as long as the people weren’t in their vehicles, but he says…well, you heard him.”

Petteri wouldn’t stoop to talking to the driver. Instead, he addressed Mr. Aarons. “Tell him I’ll buy him ten giant, mega, mondo dump trucks if he has an incident with the one he’s in.”

Aarons did as instructed.

The voice came back. “Can I get that signed from your boss?”

He grabbed the microphone. “This is Mr. Tikkanen. I don’t care who you are or what you have to do up there. We can’t stop for anyone on our trip, do you understand? People or not, you run over the pipsqueaks in front of you right this instant. I’ll have a million dollars in a briefcase with your name carved on it. Get it done!”

“Yes sir!” the man responded.

He tapped the man behind the wheel. “Drive us alongside these machines. I want to see the roadblock.”

The RV driver did his best to get around the huge dump trucks, but there wasn’t much space to maneuver. The mammoth haulers tried to stay on the right side of the road, as would a normal truck, but they were so wide they almost filled the entire highway and both shoulders. The ground was flat to the side of the road, but a forest of burned and broken trees bracketed the highway right-of-way.

When the RV got closer to the front, Petteri watched with glee as the leader of the convoy had what looked like a toy truck under its two-story wheel. Behind the first crushed vehicle, a dozen identical white trucks sat in two neat rows. The yellow dump truck would have no problem crushing them all.

“This is going to be easy,” he mused.

Then the shooting started.

Chapter 24

The Rim, WY

Grace thought she’d done a commendable job of lining up all the vehicles to block the advance of the TKM convoy. Neither her dad nor his friends said anything to contradict her, which made her believe her arrangement was the correct one. However, when the first yellow Titan came around the bend in the road, she knew immediately a few trucks weren’t going to be nearly enough.

“Oh my God,” she said, the words falling out of her mouth in horror.

The mining trucks were much larger than she’d thought. Every second they got closer to her roadblock, they appeared to double in size. The top of the dump bucket competed with the height of some trees. She guessed it was every bit of three stories high. By the time the first truck was a hundred yards from her Suburban, it didn’t look like her roadblock would even be noticed by the lead machine’s operator.

Her dad spoke up. “I might have been wrong suggesting this place. I figured we’d fire a few warning shots in front of the first driver and this would be over. But they’ve got a nice armor job up there.” He pointed to the one-man cabin twenty feet off the ground. A man was in there steering the heavy beast, but TKM had surrounded it with bare-metal steel plates. “We’d need an armor-piercing machine gun to get through that.”

She chuckled ruefully. “You’re going to laugh, Dad, but we actually had one. It went with Shawn and the Crow. They even made ammo for it.” She wasn’t quite ready to explain where it came from. Telling him about Misha was on her to-do list, but she didn’t want to worry him more than he already was.

“Can we shoot out the tires?” Haley asked, making sense.

“Or the engine?” Butch added, aiming down his rifle at the huge profile creeping up to the roadblock. “If we can find it.”

“And if they didn’t add more armor,” her dad replied to his friend. The dump truck was so immense, and the driver’s compartment sat above what had to be the motor, but it was like shooting at the side of a barn. They might never hit a critical piece.

Grace became agitated. “We have to act.”

They were safe standing behind the soot-covered tree trunks next to the road, but she watched the scene on the edge of her proverbial seat. Grace was still hopeful the driver was going to stop before things went too far. Perhaps the trucks alone wouldn’t stop the convoy, but maybe they would think twice if she ran out and flagged them down? It would at least give everyone a chance to avoid violence and possible bloodshed. And, she couldn’t deny, she wanted to save her beloved Chevy.

“I’m going out there,” she deadpanned.

Asher latched on to her arm like a sprung mouse trap. “Wait up! Do you see what’s coming? What do you expect to do?”

More and more dump trucks came around the distant bend in the road. There were only five of the giant ones, but there were lots of the smaller models. And there was also a big black RV trailing behind the five leaders. Someone had to be in charge of their convoy. Surely, someone could be reasoned with.

“If we sit here and do nothing, we’ll either have to shoot at them or let them go by. I’m not cool with either of those.” She put her hand on top of Asher’s. “You can come with me.”

He gulped loudly. At first, it looked as if he wanted to say no, but when she met his eyes, he seemed to relent. After straightening Grace’s cracked hat for her, he faced her. “There’s no stopping you, is there?”

She smiled, then turned to her dad. “Not unless you’re going to hold me back?”

He shook his head. “You’re in charge here. As long as you have a plan, I’ll support you.”

It meant the world to her to have him say those words, especially in front of the other rangers. Technically, she wasn’t in charge of so much as a pit toilet. She might not even have a job in the park service. But Candy and the others had willingly followed her into danger. Now was the time to end it.

“I aim to go out there and wave down the leader, maybe Petteri Tikkanen himself. If he’ll talk to me, maybe we can make a deal.”

Butch inched closer. “But you always have to plan for the worst. What if he doesn’t stop? What if he listens, and then says no? What’s your contingency?”

Grace had learned nothing ever went the way she wanted. Life was messy. War was even messier. Though she hated the thought, she was at war with Tikkanen Kinetic Mining. If those drivers said no, she knew there was only one course of action which would follow.

“I’ll be armed,” she said, hoping it conveyed her backup plan well enough.

“As will we,” Candy said with enthusiasm. “We won’t let anything happen to you.”

Grace imagined a spotlight had come out of nowhere and now shined on her. She stepped out of the woods, intending to make herself known to the approaching convoy. Asher came out with her. Then Dad stepped forward. Then Haley and Butch—

“Whoa!” she blurted. “We can’t all go out there. They’ll think we’re an army.”

“We are,” Butch shrugged.

“Please. Just me and Asher for now.” She faced her dad, knowing he would need convincing. “Please.”

Dad put up his hands. “I’ll stay here for now, but you can’t stop me if things get screwy. My only job is to protect you.” He looked at Asher with a wry smile. “And you, I suppose.”

“Thanks, Dad,” she said, “I’ll feel better knowing you’re up here.”

Butch tapped her dad on the shoulder. “You can watch her at the first truck. Haley and I will watch the second. The rangers can spread out and keep an eye on the others behind them. If anyone tries to get the jump on your daughter, we’ll be all over them.”

After a few more decisions, she and Asher stepped out of the woods. They walked the short distance over open ground, reaching the front of the roadblock as the first dump truck closed to within about twenty yards.

She and Asher waved their arms while standing on the shoulder. The huge black tires of the beastly mining truck straddled the two lanes of traffic and rolled down both shoulders. If they wanted to do so, they could easily walk under part of the vehicle without needing to bend down.

“Are you sure about this?” Asher said from the side of his mouth.

The engine’s mechanical whir made it hard to hear him, but she got the gist.

“Yes. We have to stop this here and now.” She waved wildly to get the driver’s attention. Somewhere in that small metal box, a man had to see her standing at the head of the roadblock. How else could he drive forward?

It slowed to a crawl, leading her to think she had the driver’s attention, but it didn’t stop.

The tire rubber made impressions in the soft shoulder of the highway as the giant machine approached. Each lug on the front tire was the size of a wide cinder block.

Her dad yelled from the woods. “Get out of the way!”

She couldn’t believe the driver wasn’t stopping.

Asher nudged her aside.

The giant tire blotted out the road as it went by.

The machine slowed to almost a stop as it ran against her truck; she thought the driver was finally giving up the advance. The game was over. One more dent to her poor little Chevy. Another funny story for her to tell Randy.

“Oh, thank God—” she started to say.

The dump truck motor continued, spinning the tire against the back of her truck, chomping and crushing at it like it was an aluminum can.

She couldn’t watch what happened next.

The Rim, WY

“Butch.” Ezra only had to say his name. By his tone of voice, his friend knew what Ezra planned to do, and his role in helping with that plan. They’d briefly talked about their defensive and offensive options while Grace went out to meet the giants.

The time for action was being forced on them.

Ezra was already out of his hiding spot by the time the front wheel of the yellow hauler spiked its way onto the back of Grace’s truck. The way she hunched over at the sight of it made him think she’d been shot. As he ran toward trouble, he came to understand she wasn’t injured, but she was hurt.

“Sonofabitch!” she yelled at the fifteen-foot-tall tire passing in front of her. “That’s my truck!”

He reached her a second later. “Come on, move back! Shooting is going to start!”

The tire finished with her Suburban and went on to the next. Grace gasped at the sight of her damaged truck; it looked as if the back half had been flattened. But she stumbled backward as he pulled at her elbow.

“We should move,” Asher said, also tugging her in the proper direction.

Once they were back at the trees, Butch opened fire with his AR, pumping rounds into the enormous tire. Haley soon joined him, aiming for the same wheel. However, after about ten or fifteen shots, they stopped to assess. “Are we hitting it? Shooting at the tires isn’t doing anything. What the hell are we supposed to shoot at?”

The yellow dump truck was taking its time climbing over the SUVs blocking the road, as if the driver was being cautious. Since it was loaded with tons of ore, the chassis of the big rig didn’t shake or bounce at all. It rolled over the truck, smashed it completely, then moved on.

When the first dumper was five deep into the park service blockade, the second one started in. In the gap between the two trucks, he noticed the black RV had come up and parked on the far shoulder.

However, Grace was focused elsewhere. “My truck! It’s still there.” She pointed. The back portion had been smashed and dented beyond recognition, but the rear tires were still intact, as was the rest of the truck. It was as if the monster truck had pushed her SUV out of the way, rather than crushing it outright.

Ezra wondered what the RV was doing, but he was distracted by the second dump truck. It turned its mondo wheels to position itself more toward the left side of the road. Instead of following in the tracks of the first one, the second driver wanted to get in on the smashing action.

“Aw, crap,” Grace said, seeing what was coming.

The yellow giant’s tire lined up with the second row of seats in her truck, then it rolled forward, instantly crushing what was left of the Suburban. It was bad enough when the first tire went over, but the driver shifted again as if he was doing a slalom run across the rows of parked vehicles. His rear tire went over the engine bay of her Chevy, ensuring nothing was left but a flat heap of metal.

While he commiserated with Grace’s loss, he needed to find a realistic way to stop the huge machines. They needed bigger vehicles to block them. They perhaps could find a way to shoot the engines from the front, or, God forbid, from underneath. There had to be a way.

As the third industrial giant rolled up to the skid mark of a roadblock, he saw the black RV again. It couldn’t be a random occurrence, it had to be someone in charge.

Grace began shooting her rifle at the lead truck, screaming and yelling as if it had personally attacked her. For a few seconds, he was interested to see if the bullets would sink into the tires, but the tall specialty radials seemed to absorb all her rounds, as they did for Butch and Haley. The rest of her shots zinged off metal or went into the pile of rocks sticking up from the Olympic-pool-sized dumper.

He held her shoulder. “Grace, you can’t hurt them.”

“Dad, we have to stop these trucks. We can’t let TKM get away with this.”

Ezra looked around at Butch and Haley, then at Grace and Asher. He knew far in advance there was no point in assigning anyone to sit out what he was going to suggest, so it was better to tell them all at once.

“Maybe we don’t need to take out the body of the snake. We only need to take out the head.”

Grace looked at him with grim determination, as if the next words out of his mouth were going to make her year.

He tried not to disappoint. While pointing to the black RV, he added, “And there it is.”

Chapter 25

The Rim, WY

Grace watched one more behemoth drive by before joining her dad in a run across the highway in front of the last giant dump truck. It was clear there was no way to knock them out of commission with the tools they had with them, but her dad was right about the head of the snake. The fancy black RV was the exact mode of transport one of the upper guys at TKM would take to oversee the convoy. No one like Petteri or his rich friends would ever be caught dead driving a filthy dump truck.

While they approached, the RV had begun to back away, its reverse warning chime beeping repeatedly.

“Shoot the tires!” her dad yelled.

She watched to see where the others were aiming, then she shot at the front tire with three quick bangs of the rifle.

Butch and Haley shredded the tires in the back before it got too far away. For a brief time, it looked as if the recreational vehicle was going to make it to safety. However, the air ran out of the front tire she’d shot, and soon all the rubber kicked out from the back wheel well, leaving only a spinning metal hub. It immediately sank into the soft shoulder.

The RV stopped, though the driver revved the engine several times to try to get them mobile again. The wide panoramic window in front made it humorous to watch the driver struggle in there. When her dad pointed his rifle at the man’s face, he sat back in his seat and put up his hands.

“We’ve got them,” her dad said dryly.

She stepped next to him. “Come out with your hands up!” Quieter, she leaned over to her dad. “I always wanted to say that.”

“Don’t let your guard down,” he said seriously. “TKM is a company that has no honor.”

Grace laughed. “You don’t have to tell me. They kidnapped Asher’s sister to get him to cooperate. I’m shocked they didn’t kidnap you, too.”

“I don’t think they knew who I was. Plus, even if they were looking for me specifically, I’ve been on the move since…since your mother died.”

They shared a quiet moment together, until the door of the RV popped open.

“Slowly!” her dad yelled, scooting left to watch the person exit.

She kept an eye on the rolling convoy. The five biggest trucks had already passed. The first one was completely through the roadblock and driving away. Behind those leaders, the other dump trucks approached the crushed steel roadblock with hesitation. Unlike those at the front, the regular earth-haulers didn’t have metal shields around the drivers. Much too late, she realized the whole roadblock-getting-crushed outcome had been unnecessary. They could have let the giants go by and then dealt with the smaller trucks on a more personal level.

To test her theory, she walked out into the highway and held up her hand to stop the first normal-sized dump truck rolling up to her.

It wasn’t even a contest. The driver saw her standing there, so he put on the brakes. She was going to walk around to talk to the man, but she caught sight of the person who’d come out of the RV.

“Mr. Tikkanen?” she blurted.

The middle-aged industrialist wore a gray business suit with a TKM navy-blue tie. His appearance made him seem as if he were on his way to work in New York City, rather than in vacation country in western Wyoming. Unlike her, he acted as if he’d expected her.

“Ms. Anderson. And where is your friend, Mr. Creighton?”

Asher had been standing near the rear of the RV. “I’m here.”

“Ah, very good.” He dropped his chin and seemed to speak into his lapel. “That’s her.”

It was an odd thing to say, and she had a few choice thoughts lined up for him as a reply, but she took notice of a red light reflecting off her shiny ranger badge. When she looked down, it was impossible to miss the thick red light glowing on her uniform shirt.

Someone had her in their crosshairs.

The Rim, WY

Susan had been gifted with a little picture frame when Grace was born. It provided a nice way to celebrate the new arrival, but it came with words of wisdom, too. He couldn’t remember the exact words written on it, but it said something to the effect that their newborn made it so he and Susan would forever have their hearts walking around outside their bodies. As he watched the sniper’s laser dot dance over Grace’s badge, he sensed his worst nightmare coming to pass. His own heart was about to be shot dead.

“Don’t shoot her!” he yelled. “We can negotiate!”

For three or four seconds, the Earth ceased spinning. The trucks meant nothing. The ore meant nothing. Even the fate of cities didn’t merit his attention. He had to save his daughter. Petteri Tikkanen, asshole that he was, seemed to think on it.

“I accept your terms,” the man said in an amused tone, as if he was having fun. “But no one is to move a muscle.” He looked over to Grace. “Except you. Please move out of the road, so my ore can get to where it needs to go.”

She looked over to Ezra, and he motioned for her to do as asked. If he could get her out of the sniper’s field of view, which seemed to come from inside the black recreational vehicle, he’d be free to operate. There wasn’t anyone he wouldn’t murder in the RV if it would save his girl.

Petteri stopped her when she was a few feet out of the lane. The driver waved down, then started moving to catch up to the five dump trucks leading the procession. After being crushed under twenty different tires, the park service trucks had been mushed into the earth. The road was almost smooth again, making it possible for the follow-on dump trucks to sail through.

“What do you want?” he asked the businessman.

Petteri shrugged. “What does anyone want? Three hot meals a day. A comfortable bed. Maybe world peace. I’ve got more refined tastes, however. I also require this ore.” He waved to the trucks rolling by.

Grace looked at him for a few seconds. She didn’t seem scared, which was good.

“What will it take to get your red dot off my daughter?” he pressed.

“Your daughter?” Petteri said with surprise. “Ah, yes. I was told you were coming. My sources say you’ve messed up quite a bit of my operation between here and Paducah, Kentucky.”

Ezra forced a laugh. “My sources say your falling rocks have killed hundreds of thousands of people and leveled several midwestern cities.”

“Touché,” Petteri replied, still not sounding concerned. “But there is only one thing that’s going to happen here. You’re going to move aside and stay there. Since you’ve ruined my comfortable ride, I’ll have to hitch transport with one of these.” He gestured to the dump trucks. “But I have a helicopter waiting for me in Jackson. When I get there, I’ll release your daughter to you again.”

Ezra stepped forward. “Wait a damned minute. You’re not taking her anywhere.”

Petteri’s face hardened. “I don’t know if you didn’t get the memo, but I’m Petteri Tikkanen. I can do whatever the hell I want in the interest of TKM. I’m only being nice to you because mass killing generates a lot of bad PR. I’d like to avoid such a setback, especially when I’m already winning.”

“She is one thing you can’t have. I’ll go with you instead.”

“Dad, no. You’re crazy,” Grace spoke from her assigned spot.

Petteri snarked at him. “Yeah, Dad, that’s not gonna happen, but maybe I should take you both. Hell, maybe I should take you all. I could stack you in the back of one of these trucks. It isn’t far to Jackson. What do you say?”

“No,” he replied. “My daughter isn’t going anywhere with you.”

“You don’t think so, huh?” Petteri replied. “I guarantee I can make it happen. To prove my point, I’ll finally end the chase I started over a week ago.” He then leaned and spoke into his lapel. “Shoot the poodle-haired young man. Through the heart.”

His eyes went to Grace. Her gaze went to Asher. The wild-haired kid still stood near the back of the RV, but smiled at his daughter with nothing but love in his eyes. It was as if he knew he was sacrificing himself for her.

“No!” Ezra screamed.

The Rim, WY

Petteri knew he’d won the game. The civilians surrounding him had no idea of the resources and manpower he had at his disposal. If the sniper didn’t deter them, he could call in a helicopter with a chain gun. If that didn’t work, he could threaten to kill everyone they’d ever met. Money greased the skids, and he had more money than anyone in the solar system.

After giving Aarons the order to shoot Asher, he’d expected an immediate result. It would be messy to see death in such close proximity, but he’d prepared himself for the eventuality. It would be worth a little blood to finally close the loop on Mr. Creighton. However, as the seconds went by, he became uncomfortable with the delay.

He leaned to his lapel again. “I said shoot him. Shoot Asher Creighton. He’s that one.” Petteri pointed to Asher, on the remote chance Mr. Aarons was having trouble identifying someone with the “poodle-hair” description.

Still the bullet didn’t come.

Dorothy climbed down the steps, holding her hands in front of her. “I’m unarmed.”

“What are you doing here? Please get back inside the truck. We’ll have new transport shortly.”

Dorothy ignored him. Instead she walked over to Grace. “We meet again.”

He tested his lapel microphone. “Aarons! Shoot the boy!”

Craig Aarons came out of the RV without his weapon. “I’m not a murderer, sir. You said these were feral terrorists. All I see are kids, park rangers, and a few old guys. I won’t kill a kid for any amount of money.” The man looked around to the so-called terrorists. “I surrender to you.”

“What the hell are you doing?” he said to his security chief. “We can’t—”

Someone grabbed him from behind by throwing a huge meaty arm around his chest. He struggled for a few seconds before determining the man was built like an ox. Escape was impossible. He had to turn to other means.

“Gentlemen, I’m sure we can come to an arrangement. Each of these dump trucks is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. I wouldn’t look twice if a few of them went missing. Surely that’s worth it to let me go on my merry way?”

“Don’t listen to him,” Dorothy droned. “He’ll only tell you lies to serve his sick empire.”

He struggled to face her. “Dorothy, not you, too. Has everyone gone nuts? Did someone get to you? I can protect you from them, trust me!”

She laughed. “No one got to me, you idiot. I got to you.”

Petteri flinched. “What do you mean?”

Dorothy had chosen to wear her old clothes on the trip to Canada. He thought nothing of it since they were on the road and out of sight. He assumed she’d given up her business suit to be comfortable on the long trip. Plus, if she wanted to dress like a hobo while dropping nukes on his lost rocks, he wasn’t going to be judgmental. She pulled her phone from the pocket of her slacks, then pressed a few buttons.

His voice came out. As soon as it started, he knew where it was going. “We drugged him, dumped him in a local brothel, sprinkled in some young-looking women, and a few young men for good measure, then took a million pictures of him.” It was from his private conversation with Dorothy a short time ago.

He laughed on the tape, then added, “We can do wonderful things with deepfake technology. That’s where you put the face of one person on the body of another. We filmed a fat man, a sort of body-double, savaging the poor losers in the whore house. Then we placed Stricker’s face on the grainy film, convincing him we had hours of him abusing the young, the old, the handicapped. Believe me, when we showed it to Stricker, it served as the proper warning. He said he’d kill his own family for us, if necessary, to avoid releasing them.” There was a pause in the tape. “We snooped around for his family ties a few weeks later, by the way, because it would have been another source of leverage. His wife and one daughter died before we got to him. The man had no family. He was being dramatic.”

Dorothy turned the recording off. “I’ve uploaded this to a dozen websites. Don’t bother trying to have me offed. You’re done for.”

Petteri couldn’t comprehend a word she’d said. The recording seemed to come down from outer space and land on his well-manicured lawn. He couldn’t reconcile the collision of the two worlds. When he was finally able to form a coherent thought, he went for the obvious. “Why in the hell are you telling all this to these terrorists? Don’t throw away all the money you’ve got coming to you. Not for someone like Stricker.” He spit as he said the name.

“I assure you, you have no idea who the real Tanner Stricker is. Before he lost his wife and daughter, he was a loving father and a doting husband. Before he lost his wife and daughter, he enjoyed riding bikes, taking long walks, and staying in shape. Before he lost his wife and daughter, he would have done anything to protect them.”

“But—” he tried to say.

She straightened her back in defiance to him. “Your mishap with the asteroid gave me the opening I needed to see how you operate, learn your weakness, and then take you down.”

He still had no idea what she was talking about. He’d seen her revulsion at the mere mention of Stricker’s name. His game of tempting Stricker with the young executive was designed to tease the man further. It also worked to see how far Dorothy was willing to go to become a part of his inner circle. He’d watched them both. The man wanted to see her as much as she wanted to avoid him. They couldn’t have planned it…

“I don’t understand,” he admitted. “What’s going on here?”

She mocked him in a whiny voice. “I don’t understand. I’m only the most powerful person in the universe. I control everything and everyone. Whatever do you mean, little woman who I’ve used to drop nukes on American cities…”

He still couldn’t escape from the iron grasp of the man holding him. “Now, wait a minute, my dear. You and I know that was done by Nerio Torres. I have video. Audio. It shows her betrayal.” As he said it, the tumbler clicked into place. “It was fake, wasn’t it?”

She laughed. “Turnabout’s a bitch isn’t it? My gear isn’t as sophisticated as your deepfake software, but it didn’t have to be. You saw what you wanted to see. I just made a pretty screenshot to make you believe the space launch of your nuke-powered maintenance drones was really happening. There are no nukes coming down, by the way. There never were.”

He jumped and shifted his weight, red-faced pissed off at what was happening to him. He threw a spittle-filled final question at her. “But you had everything. Billions! Why did you do all this for a sucker like Stricker?”

She gave him a look of pity, slowly shaking her head. Dorothy glanced at the terrorists, speaking sarcastically. “Does anyone here not know who I am, after I just explained everything to him?”

Grace Anderson slowly raised her hand. “You’re the daughter.”

“Impossible!” he huffed, breathing rapidly. “I already told you, he had no family. We checked.”

Dorothy rolled her eyes. “I’m his daughter all right. Not dead. My father had skills, too. He faked the death of Mom and me and backdated it a few years so you wouldn’t go snooping for us. As I said, you saw what you wanted to see. It’s one of your many character flaws.”

He concentrated on his breathing. He’d lost his cool with her. That was the way to ruin.

Dorothy wasn’t giving up. She got in his face. “You should know, I don’t take kindly to men who would willingly put a woman in the hands of sexual predators. Howard is the one who put me in the room with my dad. He didn’t know we were in there talking about how to coordinate your destruction. He didn’t know I was in there explaining how to slowly take away your giant rock collection. He didn’t know I was in there drawing up contracts which worked against you. All he thought was that I was in there being pawed at by a sicko, and he did nothing to help me.”

Petteri had no response.

“So, I shot him. It wasn’t planned, but when I was in the lobby in Denver, I found my opportunity. After all, you ran away to save your own ass. I couldn’t pass up the gift you’d given me. I took him out to help these people escape you again.”

“Thanks for that,” Grace replied. “You saved our asses.”

She curtseyed.

Every muscle in his body was tense and rigid. His anger percolated behind his eyes, causing explosions of black and white speckles in his vision. But he wouldn’t let the female terrorist, butcher, betrayer, murderer get to him in front of everyone. Instead of snapping back at Howard’s killer, which he desperately wanted to do, he instead searched for a way out. For rescue.

Mr. Aarons leaned against the RV, being useless. He’d dropped his weapons and seemed content to surrender to the terrorists. Rescue would not come from him. Who was the next security person in his organization? Could he contact them? Could they swoop in and save him? There had to be a way to salvage his position.

After his personal escape, he was going to avenge Howard even if it was the last thing he ever did. But for the moment, as Dorothy and her rabble stared at him, he had to act defeated.

He hung his head low. Scheming already.

Chapter 26

The Rim, WY

Petteri no longer seemed so intimidating to Grace. With his allies abandoning him, and his trucks halted on the road, his ability to hurt her or any of her friends was about zilch. He was surrounded by men and women with plenty of guns. However, she did notice him whispering into his suit jacket.

“Hey, he’s talking to someone!” she shouted.

Butch was already holding him. He whipped the smaller man away and peeled off Petteri’s gray sport coat at the same time. He discovered a small radio.

“Who were you talking to?” Butch asked, pulling out the device.

Petteri smiled, but revealed nothing.

Grace was anxious to ask him more questions, but her phone meowed. It seemed there couldn’t be anything more important than what she was doing, but the cat’s meow kept getting louder. Even Petteri looked at her as if she should answer it.

“Fine,” she said, pulling it out of her pocket.

“Grace? It is Misha here.”

She could barely construct a reply. “Really?”

“Yes. Why surprised?” Misha always talked in basic English with a thick Russian accent.

“You were a wreck when I last saw you. I take it they fixed you up at the hospital?” She walked away from the RV and the action there, wanting to keep her conversation away from Petteri.

“I stayed one day. Plenty long.”

She gasped. “You were hit by a grenade!” Thinking of her history with the ex-hitman and how he operated, she realized the timing wasn’t a coincidence. “Where are you now?”

After asking the question, she scanned the highway, wondering if he was on one of the dump trucks. The drivers had gotten out. Many stood beside their trucks or sat in the grass next to the trees. Her rangers mingled with the workers, checking to ensure everyone was all right or if they needed anything. Typical ranger activities when there wasn’t a war going on. Misha could be anywhere in the convoy, but it would take a long time to walk to the rear of the line. The convoy still wrapped around the bend in the road, out of her sight. It might go back for miles.

“I got call from friend. He told me where to find Petteri.”

Grace peered down the road toward the drivers one more time, sure he was out there. Then, realizing the five huge dump trucks were still on the move, she turned around and watched them continue to roll away. Was he in one of those? “Was it your friend Jake Ray? He helped me find Petteri, too. But everything is over. We captured him. He’s standing right here with about twenty guns aimed at him.”

Misha was silent for a long pause, before continuing. “I am sorry for what transported between us. No. That is wrong word. Transpired? Is correct use?”

She chuckled. “Yes.”

“Ah, I am sorry for what transpired between us. But I cannot—”

A man yelled from close by. “A helicopter’s coming!”

The whump-whump chop of a military helicopter came from ten feet above the trees. In seconds, it was directly above the RV.

“Grace? Are you there?” Misha seemed concerned.

“There’s a helicopter above me,” she complained. “Hang on a second!” The blowing rotor wash made it difficult to hear the phone.

As everyone watched above, someone in the helo dropped a small boxy object that fell about ten feet in front of the RV. Her first thoughts went to it being a bomb or a grenade, but Butch saw it come down and he didn’t flinch. He trotted over and picked it up as the helicopter drifted up the highway, toward the flattened trucks.

“It’s a radio,” Butch declared.

It was already on. A man’s voice came out. “This is helo extraction team Petteri-Exit-5. We respectfully request you surrender him to us, or we’ll turn a few of your people into paste.”

The helicopter descended until it was a few feet above the pancake that was once her park service Chevrolet. The rear door of the aircraft was already open, and a man sat at the rotary machine gun. She knew the drill.

Petteri laughed sarcastically. “You can’t win. You had to know it deep down, right? I’m way ahead of you. I’m always planning two moves beyond each failure, and three moves beyond each success. This evacuation is one of those plans for failure. Unfortunate, but necessary.”

The wealthiest man in the world stood tall. “I’ll be going now.”

The Rim, WY

His call for backup from Mr. Aarons might have failed, but he had a helicopter on standby, listening to his radio frequency. When he saw his chance to call in the big guns, he’d whispered the code word into his lapel radio, which the idiot terrorists had failed to take off his person.

They stepped away from him as if he might explode, which was the respect he demanded from them. “I’ll be going now,” he added for good measure.

The insufferable young park ranger was the only one who didn’t seem scared. She immediately put herself between him and the waiting helicopter. “You can’t get away with this, you know. There are a million witnesses to your plots. Dorothy has the goods on you. Even your security man won’t back you up.”

They both turned back to Mr. Aarons. “Are you coming?” Petteri asked.

His security chief remained affixed to the side of the RV. “I’m not a murderer. I’m also not one to support child abuse, like you did with those videos. I have two daughters.”

Petteri didn’t see the big deal. “It was fake, don’t you get it? She exposed me for what it was. Stricker didn’t do anything to those kids. It’s all good.”

Craig became angry. “But your stunt guy actually hurt those people. It was fake for Stricker, but real for the kids in that foreign country. You’re a sick man, Mr. Tikkanen. You made that happen. I’m out.”

Yes, he was disappointed in Mr. Aarons. He’d disobeyed a direct order to kill the girl. He’d suddenly become sensitive about third-worlders. He was positive Major Howard would have pulled the trigger without making a civil case out of it. As had been proven by Dorothy and Aarons, he had a lot of team rebuilding to do once he was safely in a non-extradition foreign nation. Or space. He could leave Earth completely. A man with his resources could literally do anything.

Petteri decided to step around the girl, but he couldn’t resist rubbing his successes in her face. “You should know, these dump trucks are all carrying worthless gravel dug up from next to my asteroid. Do you really think I would put all my ore in a slow-moving, easy-to-stop convoy such as this? The only trucks with actual ore are the ones in the front.”

“The giant trucks?” she said in astonishment.

“Of course. There’s nothing on Earth that could stop those, as we saw with your silly roadblock. I made sure—”

Dorothy interjected. “Actually, sir, those trucks will collapse the first bridge they cross. At almost four hundred tons, no bridge in America is going to support one of them. Don’t forget, I’m the one who planned your route and said it was all smooth sailing.” She chuckled to further the insult.

Inwardly, his anger burned hotter than the core of the sun. Outwardly, he simply smiled coolly. “It doesn’t matter. The bulk of my ore has been flying across the western mountain range for the past four days. Around the clock. Helicopters. Cargo planes. I’d use blimps if I could find them. The ferry operation has been going on beneath everyone’s notice, even yours. It all went to an isolated rail depot in Idaho. Most of the ore is already in Canada. Ha! Suck it.”

It felt good to be so crass.

He found it heartening to see her back away. It had been critical to have all of his most trusted subordinates laser-focused on other threats. He’d grabbed one of his egghead logistics ladies and put her in charge of moving the ore over the mountains. He didn’t even know her name. Didn’t want to know it. Of all the people he’d been dealing with over the past week, no-name Nancy was the only one who came through for him. Still, it was another of his fallback for fallbacks. He was still in the game.

Mr. Aarons decided he had more to say. “You said those were personnel flights. More and more TKM guards were coming in. I should have known that was fishy. We never had enough men.”

Petteri didn’t even bother addressing the bearded military man. He was dead to him.

Now with everyone behind him, he turned around to face them. “I have an army of lawyers who will make sure that everything you think has been a victory for you will soon turn into a decisive defeat.” He turned to Dorothy. “No matter what you think you have on me, I’ll make sure this litigation drags on for a lifetime. The news works for me. Stricker will soon have to face a nagging press on why he was in a foreign country abusing the local population. The fine print way down the page will say something about it possibly being fake. Maybe he’ll be charged with other crimes in the meantime. You never know.”

He turned around with a spring in his step. The helicopter hovered above the flattened wreckage on the highway. If the pilot were top-notch, he would have hovered over the clear pavement before the roadblock, so he didn’t have to walk into the field of debris like a chump.

As he approached, the man at the oversized machine gun gave him a curt nod. He then stepped away from the weapon and came over to the edge of the cargo area. Petteri expected him to hold out a hand to help him up, but instead he hopped out of the helicopter and stood before him.

“Help me up!” he yelled.

For some reason, the rotors slowed. He tried to get a look at the pilot, but couldn’t see inside. The goon standing in front of him was blocking his view.

“We have to go!” he insisted.

The man didn’t move until the engine noise died down. Petteri became uncomfortable with the delay. Many of the terrorists were creeping up behind him, as if they saw an opportunity to pounce.

“I insist you help me onto the helicopter.” Not wanting to allow the rotors to come to a complete stop, he tried to go around the man. However, the guy grabbed his arm and shoved him back.

“What the hell? Get me out of here!”

The man in the drab flight suit pulled out a flat board of some kind, then held it in front of his chest. Petteri was surprised at seeing it but recognized it as a white board. Written in thick green letters, he read out loud, “This is for my wife and mother.”

“What’s for them?” He was furious. “What in god’s name is this about?”

When the guy removed his helmet, Petteri saw a ghost.

“Misha? I—I—” he stuttered. His brain shifted gears. Hard. “I can pay you whatever you want.”

Misha flashed a wry smile. “That is your problem. You think money is like magic. Put some here, and geologist goes away. Put some there, and you fight off Native Americans. Put more over here, and Misha loses wife and mother.” The Russian revealed a pistol held at his hip.

“Wait!” Petteri cried out.

Misha fired fifteen times, but Petteri, the richest man in the world, only heard four of them.

The Rim, WY

Ezra raised his gun along with the rest of the people around him when the helicopter crewman shot Petteri dead. No one fired to stop him, however, though he couldn’t say why. For him, it seemed like the asshole had it coming. The whiteboard message suggested it had been personal.

Once the guy dumped his full mag, he dropped the handgun to the ground. Above him, the rotors of the helicopter had almost come to a halt.

The man put up his hands. “You will find pilot unable to fly.”

Grace stepped forward, to Ezra’s immediate dismay.

“Misha? Why? We were just talking on the phone.” She held up her phone as proof.

“I know. I tried to explain but did not think you would understand if I told you what I planned to do. I do not care about the asteroid or funny business with rocks. I give my life to pay him back for killing Anna and my innocent mother.”

Ezra stepped forward a few paces. “Grace, don’t get too close. He might have other weapons.”

She smiled at him. “Don’t worry, Dad, this is the hitman who chased Asher and me across Yellowstone. He’s not going to harm us.” She turned back to the Russian with a look of distrust. “Are you?”

He kept his hands up. “Misha works for no one but Misha now.”

Grace did the opposite of what he’d requested. She got near to the man and held out her hand. “Thank you for turning out to be a decent human being.”

After checking to make sure he wasn’t going to be shot, he lowered one arm and grabbed her hand to shake. As he did so, he looked around. “I am curious if any of you know Jake Ray? He told me to be here.”

“Jake?” Grace replied. “You mean you don’t know him? You told us to find him. You told us he was your friend.”

Misha nodded. “He is friend, yes, but I do not know him. He is—”

“I’m Jake Ray,” a woman interrupted.

Ezra saw the words come out of the mouth of the black-haired woman—Dorothy.

She continued. “I’ve been helping you both, and a few others out there.”

Asher laughed. “How did you guys not know he was a she?”

Dorothy scowled. “If I’d been myself, Mr. Tikkanen would have figured out I had betrayed him. I needed to disguise my voice over the phone so I could operate freely. It turned out to be unnecessary, though, as he had no idea I was working against him. And…” She faced Misha directly, “I understand why you did this. Why you killed him. He’d been threatening my dad, Secretary of Homeland Security Stricker, for years.”

Misha shook hands with the other woman, then he gave himself up to the park rangers. His daughter seemed intent to speak on behalf of the Russian when life got back to normal, though he would have been happy if she’d avoided ex-hitmen altogether.

He and Grace met near the bullet-mangled body of Petteri. “Well, Dad, now you know what I’ve been doing out here. I’ve been running from hitmen. Running from tycoons. Running from crazy ladies with big machine guns.”

“You didn’t mention machine guns,” he replied.

“I’ll have to tell you all about it.” She pulled Asher closer to her. “But first, there’s a question Mr. Creighton would like to ask you.”

“There is?” Asher asked with embarrassment.

“Yes,” she insisted. “You were going to ask him when you met him. Here he is, my dad.” After a brief pause, she playfully poked her friend in the ribs.

“Oh, right. That.” The young man seemed to bolster himself to ask the question. “Sir—”

Ezra interrupted immediately. “You have my permission.”

Asher froze. Grace’s mouth fell to her chest.

“What?” Ezra went on. “I could see from the instant I met you that you’re in love with my daughter, and she feels the same way about you. A father has an instinct for these things. You have my permission to begin courting my Gracie.”

Grace let out the big breath she’d been holding. “Oh. I thought you were giving him permission to marry me. I mean, you didn’t think?”

Ezra laughed heartily. It was always the same with his little girl. She constantly tried to bite off more than she could chew. He casually clapped once, congratulating her for the good effort.

She and Asher both clapped one time in response. Then the three of them shared looks of surprise back and forth.

“You two are playing the game with each other?” he asked, touched by their actions.

Grace took Asher’s hand, which he readily gave. She flashed her toothy grin at Ezra. “Dad, I’m afraid I have to tell you that you’re going to lose someday. It’s now two against one.”

He tried to hold back tears. Butch stood nearby, Haley’s arm wrapped around his waist. His family was together in a way he never would have imagined back when he was standing on his boat with Susan. Back before the asteroid. Back before…losing her. Still, life had to go on.

“I look forward to playing against you two every day for the rest of my life.”

“Me, too, Dad,” Grace said, bringing him into their mutual embrace.

A heavy weight landed on his back as Butch and Haley joined in.

“Me, three, Dad,” Butch joked.

Chapter 27

Yellowstone National Park, WY (One Year Later)

“Grace, you want to share a glass of wine with me?” Asher stood by the open refrigerator. In singsong, he added, “We don’t have to drive for a few days.”

“No, but I’ll have a Coke,” she replied, using a bit of her Kentucky drawl. “It’ll travel easier on the way to the bus station.”

He sighed. “Sprite is not a Coke, and that’s all you drink. Why do you insist on calling every soda a freaking Coke?”

It was one of the many quirks they had to work through as a couple. Where she grew up, you didn’t ask to drink a soda, you asked to drink a Coke. Then you specified the type of Coke you wanted.

He got busy preparing it.

She and Asher had been given a large donation of the ore by the Crow Nation for their services in helping bring Petteri Tikkanen to justice and helping establish the legal claim to the rocks sitting on their tribal lands. Over the following year, more small pieces of ore were found on Crow property, as well as the land of many other owners across the middle states of America. The rest of the ore, at least the remnants not taken by looters and ambitious mining companies, was confiscated by the US government. That included all the train cars of ore Petteri had tried to sneak out of the country.

They’d used part of their windfall to build a modest log cabin home on the border of Yellowstone National Park. She’d donated most of the rest to the park itself, as a means of helping rebuild the place she loved the most.

“You won’t be surprised when you see who’s picking us up,” Asher said from the kitchen.

She looked out the front window. There was a black SUV with Crow tribal markings on the door. It wasn’t some random person, either. Logan Runs Hard stood outside the driver’s door.

When they got outside, Grace reverted to her old overly protective mode. “You drove here by yourself?”

Logan laughed. “I’m fifteen. That’s plenty old enough to drive.”

“Not legally,” Asher snarked.

“Well, I’m a Crow. I don’t always do things legally.”

She knew he wasn’t talking about being an outlaw. His meaning was much closer to home. “You didn’t tell your father, did you?”

He looked at her with a sheepish grin. “Would it help if I said my uncle knows?”

Grace had been messing with him, so she let him off the hook. “Get us to the Billings bus station in one piece, and no one has to know a thing.”

The drive over Beartooth Pass was nothing like their trip a year ago. It was sunny and bright and there was no fear of sliding off the roadway or being struck from above by flying vehicles.

“I guess it will take a lifetime to get rid of that black snow, huh?” Logan asked, pointing to the glaciers of ice while they drove along the highest segment of highway.

Asher had been studying the effects on local geology and ecology for his new job with the park service. “It’s part of the scenery for good. There’s some evidence these glaciers will melt faster because they’re darker, but the added dust in the atmosphere has made everything quite a bit cooler this summer. It will take some time for everything to balance out again.”

“Just like society,” she said in a speculative tone. The affected states were putting themselves back together, but there was a long way to go. Her trip home before the disaster would have been a quick flight from Billings to Chicago, then on to Paducah. Now, in the rebuilding of America, flights were rare. They had to take a Greyhound bus, which was one industry doing well in the new economy. She was looking at about six different bus routes, four days of uncomfortable seats, and probably a crazy number of hours hearing babies cry.

“My sister is working on it, you know. Diedre got promoted in the mission control overseeing TKM’s old assets. She’s part of the effort to put his reorganized company to good use.”

“I hope she succeeds,” she said, staring at the alien landscape of white-and-black snowfields.

“I wouldn’t know about the whole world,” Logan said, suddenly interested in the radio.

Grace’s stomach went into tumble mode at seeing him fiddling with the dial while on the narrow roads a thousand feet above the valley. “Let me handle the music, m’kay?”

“I’m a great driver. You should know that by now.”

“Don’t get cocky,” Asher said in a bemused tone.

When they reached the busy bus station, a small group was waiting for them to arrive.

“Uh-oh, it looks like a mob has it in for us,” Asher said with concern.

“It’s not a mob,” Logan declared. “It’s a proper Crow Nation send off.”

The boy and his parents had tricked her. Her old friends claimed to want to give her a ride to the bus station so she wouldn’t have to risk her car sitting in a dangerous parking lot for two weeks. Logan said his mom and dad had no idea he was the one driving them into town, but there they were waving as he arrived.

“You planned all this?” she asked Logan.

“Not me. It was my dad’s idea, mostly. He knows where you’re going, and why you’re going there. He wanted to pay his respects, even though he can’t get on the bus with you.”

She hung her head, not sure what to say.

“Come on,” Logan pressed. “They’ll probably have snacks.”

Left alone, Asher reached to her from the back seat. She turned to face him.

“Are you ready for this trip?” he asked in a serious, quiet tone.

“There’s nothing I want to do more, except spend my life with you.”

They looked into each other’s eyes, happy and sad at the same time.

“Let’s go,” she prompted. “I want to ask Mr. Runs Hard if his kid ever listens to him. Might give me some pointers for down the road.”

She scrambled out of the truck before he could reply, smiling ear-to-ear.

Fairdealing, KY

Butch and Haley had been with him as he walked through his old subdivision. He hobnobbed with a few of his old neighbors, though most of them had moved away after Kentucky Lake had been drained. With all the other disasters in the cities of America, there was little zest for rebuilding a dam out in the middle of Kentucky. With the draw of the lake gone, lots of people had left.

Including him.

However, the reason he was back had nothing to do with his old home, though he did stop by and look at the pile of ash. He almost expected a note from Babs to be pinned to the trash pile, perhaps explaining he was being fined each day for not following some rule or another, as a final poke in his eye. But she and her clipboard were nowhere to be seen.

“E-Z, we’re almost there. You good?” Butch held the leash for the wild puggle, Liam. Haley’s dog was now mostly Butch’s, too.

He gave a thumbs-up sign. “I am. I’m living in Montana, near Grace. That’s all that matters to me now. But I needed to come back and see Susan. Tell her I made it to our daughter and brought her back, as I promised.”

The three of them walked for a short time, checking out the other lost homes, and the weed-filled basin where the lake had been. However, when they reached the hillside where they’d been headed, he was shocked to see it overflowing with people.

“What the hell?” he asked with surprise.

Butch snickered with Haley. The young woman wore a summer dress, which was out of character for the spandex-wearing fitness enthusiast, but she didn’t let a nice outfit stop her from scooping up Liam and giving him a belly rub.

“You guys brought them?”

They nodded excitedly, both scratching their spoiled pup. “We knew you were coming to Susan’s grave for the first time since you moved away. We might have sent out some invites, so you didn’t have to do this alone.”

At a glance, he saw Grace and Asher, which he expected. However, there was a curious mixture of military men, police, park rangers, and a small contingent of Native Americans. Ezra was taken aback. “Who’d you invite? The whole country?”

Butch slapped him on the back. “Everyone who needed to know about the sacrifices you and your daughter endured in order to help bring this nation back together again. We even got the president.”

“No way!” he gushed. “The President of the United States?”

Butch snickered as Haley playfully slapped him.

“That was mean!” Haley turned to Ezra. “Well, actually we didn’t get the president, but we did ask his office. They said no. However, fear not, they sent a fancy-looking letter we’ll give to you later. Hope it serves as a worthy substitute.”

“Seriously?” he snarked, sounding a lot like his daughter.

“Come on, president or no, it won’t be that bad. I promise.” Haley hooked her arm into his elbow and dragged him toward the ceremony. “By the by, you clean up nicely. I haven’t seen you without all the stubble.”

“Thanks,” he replied.

Despite the fuzzball of energy in Haley’s other arm, the compliments, and the overall good spirits of his friends, his mood darkened as he headed for the patch of ground where he’d buried his wife. He wasn’t looking forward…

“What the hell is this?” he said with amazement.

Susan’s resting place was on the woodland hillside above his old neighborhood. He and Butch had dug the hole and laid her there a little over a year ago. At the time, he was in a hurry and could only mark it with a stick. To his surprise, his old neighbors had installed a decorative wrought-iron fence around her plot. They’d also taken the time to plant hundreds of black-eyed Susans along the outside of the barrier, which added a colorful frame of vibrant yellow to the otherwise-ordinary spot.

Butch seemed impressed, too. “I guess your old crew wasn’t so bad, after all.”

He walked up nearly in tears, admiring the beautiful arrangement.

Grace came over and stood beside him.

“I’m so sorry, Dad.”

He shifted to give her a hug. “Me, too, Gracie. I can’t express how grateful I am that I was able to find you out west and we were able to come back here together. It fulfills a promise I made to your mother when she…” He still couldn’t say it, so he went on. “Mom would have been so proud of you. So proud of the friends you’ve made and the career you’ve chosen.”

Grace pulled back a bit. “She’d freak out if you told her all those stories about what you went through to reach me. And you still don’t know everything I did out West, Dad.” She chuckled. “If I told Mom everything, I mean absolutely every detail, wow, it would have blown her mind. I often wonder, though, would she have survived it all? You know, if things had been different.”

“Oh yeah,” he replied, feeling a bit cheerier. “She would definitely have some choice words for me. However, I’ve been wondering about the same thing this past year. I think she would have come to understand why we were taking the risks. I bet she wouldn’t have jumped into action quite as fast as me, but I guarantee you if someone had threatened you, or put you in danger, your mom would have turned into Rambo to protect you.”

“It’s what parents do,” she said with a twinkle in her eye.

“Yeah, that’s right. Wait, what was that look?”

Grace walked away, avoiding giving an answer.

He was soon swamped by strangers. The military sent an envoy to thank him for helping protect vital national interests. Bass Pro sent a representative to offer him a lifetime discount at all their stores for trying to protect their shoppers in St. Charles. The people of Kansas City even sent him a brand-new pontoon boat on a trailer, emblazoned with the name Susan’s Grace II. The delivery guy said it was donated by those affected by the atrocity TKM committed in their city. Ezra had helped expose it all.

He finally ran into someone he knew, though he wasn’t sure if it was going to be a good or bad encounter. He’d last seen the skinny Crow Nation man under tense circumstances. “Calvin Tames Horse? Thank you for coming.” Before the man could speak, Ezra thought of the name of the young girl. “How’s Fern?”

Calvin flashed a wide smile. “She’s doing just fine. I’m doing great, too, thanks to you. Logan told me this was going on. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

He brushed his hand over his neck with embarrassment. “So, you don’t think I’m with TKM? It really sucked to have to lie to you. I tried to send you a message over the past year, but you know how it is with unreliable mail.”

“Yep, it’s all tumbleweeds over the plains. My brother told me your story a long time ago. I know why you did what you did. I also know you saved two lives that day by getting those men to ignore Fern and me. I figured coming here was my chance to finally thank you.”

They shook hands, but Ezra was in a fog. Two other members of the Crow tribe passed by, shaking his hand or patting him on the back. A Wyoming state trooper awarded him some medal he couldn’t remember the name of. Even Josephine, the woman who’d watched over Haley’s pets, had showed up.

The ceremony was brief, as Susan would have wanted. Ezra said a few things, then teared up as Grace and others added their beautiful words to his clumsy ones. When it was over, the gathering broke up quickly, leaving him with his close friends and family.

“Thanks for doing this, Dad. I’m glad I finally got to come back and say…goodbye.” Grace’s voice was solemn.

“You can thank these two.” He gestured to Butch and Haley. “They’ve given me an incredible gift I don’t know if I can ever repay.”

Butch put his arm over Haley’s shoulder. “No, Ezra, you gave me the best gift of all when we found this woman.”

Haley squirmed out of his grip, then placed her arm around Butch. “No, you’ve got it backward. He delivered the best gift to me.”

The muscle-bound pair playfully tickle-wrestled to see who could wrap their arm around the other, and who really, seriously, got the best gift, causing everyone to let out much-needed laughter.

When it settled down, he turned to Asher and his evasive daughter. “So, is there anything you want to say to me?”

Asher raised his hands as if to clap.

Ezra held up his palm. “We aren’t doing that right now. Time out on the clapping game, okay? This is serious.” He looked into Grace’s eyes. “There’s something you aren’t telling me. I know you too well, kiddo. Come on, spit it out. Your mother is watching, don’t forget.” He was being cheeky, but there was a grain of truth to his words. He really did think she was watching over them. Certainly, he felt that way in all those times he’d almost died, and someone had miraculously protected him.

Grace glanced at the grave, then back at him, tearing up a little.

“What is it?” he asked with concern.

“I remember the forest fire where I met this man.” She gently bumped Asher’s hip, prompting him to immediately wrap his arm around her waist. “And all the adventures we shared in those ten crazy days afterward. I remember our tiny wedding ceremony. I remember all the little moments he and I shared as we built our dream home this past year. So many incredible memories I’ve already experienced.”

She reached for him, holding her breath, as if building up to a surprise.

“And?” Ezra coaxed, taking her hand in his.

Her misty eyes were nothing but joyous. “Well, I’ll never forget the memory of this moment, either, Grandpa.”

Author Notes

Thank you for reading the Impact series to the end. It was a collaborative effort between myself, EE Isherwood, and post-apocalyptic powerhouse Mike Kraus. However, to avoid confusion, this author note is an Isherwood original.

As an author, it feels like I’ve just traveled across the country in a van filled with my wife and kids, all our camping gear, and an additional half a trunk of things we don’t need. We’re all tired, our legs are cramped, and our youngest has asked, “Are we there yet?” for the last hundred miles. However, when we get out and look at the Grand Canyon together, all that struggle is forgotten.

But it isn’t just about writing the book.

Last summer, at about this time in August, my family and I were having the time of our lives at Yellowstone National Park. We camped. Hiked. Saw the bison. Got blown away by the beauty and seemingly endless wonders at the huge park. We sat and watched Old Faithful. Traveled the boardwalks at Mammoth Hot Springs. I knew at the time it was where I wanted to set the early books of this series.

When I got home and started writing, all the wind was in my sails. The kids begrudgingly went back to school. My wife returned as a teacher’s aide. All was right with the world. However, by the time this last book was ready to go out the door, the entire world had changed. COVID-19 struck, making vacations to Yellowstone impossible, and simple trips to the grocery store suddenly seemed more dangerous than Mad Max scavenging for some Dinky-Di dog food.

The world of today is completely upside down. The kids are begging me to go back to their schools. We have no idea if my wife will have her job. And all the while it still seems dangerous to go to the local food store. Or, maybe it isn’t? I have dozens of sources saying opposite things about COVID-19. Masks are good and bad at the same time. Studies say one drug works and doesn’t work at the same time. There’s no way to know what to believe, which makes it all the more chaotic.

Back to my point about the long trip, the family who gets into the car at the beginning of the cross-country jaunt is never the same one who gets out. You have no choice but to learn new things about your closest family members. Their musical tastes. How much boredom they can endure. You share disgusting experiences at the filthy gas station in the middle of nowhere. And you always have that one time where campgrounds are full, motels are flying the no-vacancy signs, and your family has to sleep in the van that night. It’s not fun, let me tell you!

As an author, writing these books allowed me to stay in the car while the world did its thing on the outside. Writing the last pages were both a relief and a disappointment. I wasn’t quite ready for the journey to be over, as much as I’m proud of the conclusion. The world isn’t back to normal just yet, so it felt like I wanted to keep on driving…

As a reader, I hope our shared journey provided some comfort and distraction from what’s taking place outside your own windows. May you find the leadership of Grace, the single-mindedness of Ezra, and the good humor of Butch. If you find yourself in a troubled spot, remember that anyone can redeem themselves, like Misha. Finally, though the world can often seem like a dark place, never forget there are real heroes out there. When life is burning hot with chaos all around you, an angel could come walking out of the flames to pick you up. Just ask Asher. Once you see how it’s done, you can go on to be the next hero.

Before I let you go, I do want to mention some of my other PA series. If you enjoyed Impact, you will almost certainly enjoy my Minus America series. As a strange energy sweeps across America, erasing people in its path, an Air Force pilot gets a frantic call from his sister. She makes him promise he will keep her only daughter safe…just before the call is cut off. Over the next five books, he has to track down his niece, solve the riddle of who attacked America, and is also tasked with protecting the first female vice president of the United States.

My other post-apocalyptic series is called End Days. A truck driver is loading his rig in California when a science experiment sends a blue wave of energy around the globe. His son sees it, too, but he is in New York City. Over the next four books, they must travel across an unraveling nation to meet up with each other. Along the way, they’ll begin to figure out time itself is unraveling. 

I keep to realism as much as possible, and there are some dark times in these series, but I also like to think all of my books balance toward the lighter side, which is because I’m a glass-half-full type of person. If you need some positive books to read, I hope you’ll check them out.

Find me on Amazon by searching for Minus America or my author name EE Isherwood. You can also hit me up at www.eeisherwood.com.

The last thing I want to do is the most important. Mike Kraus invited me to come and write in his world and I want to convey my sincere thanks to him for giving me this opportunity. He has more series than I can list here, but after seeing his quality control, editors, beta readers, and his vision, I can assure you each one is going to be worth your time.

Thank you, Mike.

In closing, I truly hope you enjoyed this story. If you did, and if you can spare perhaps five minutes of your time, please consider going to Amazon and tapping those stars on each of the books. You don’t have to leave a long, glowing text review, though I like to read them. Instead, you can tap the stars to give it a rating, then hit submit. No text necessary. Each review is like a slice of that golden asteroid for us authors. It tells other readers we’re worth buying and it tells movie producers our story is worth making into a movie (hint hint!).

That’s all I have for now. Please be safe out there. Be kind to your fellow humans. They’re a lot more stressed out than you, remember, since they don’t all take fun post-apocalyptic car rides to calm themselves down.

EE Isherwood

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