“Why Barstow?” Sharon asked. “I keep thinking that. Why there, for fuck’s sake, of all places?”
“I don’t know,” Gia said, “but when we get to that point, that’s not where we’re going.”
“Good. I hate Barstow. It’s a shit hole. I grew up there so I can say that.”
Gia looked up at her. “You still have any relatives there?”
“No.”
“Good.” She returned her attention to the screen. The rail yard there was the largest feature of the town.
But if they had positioned the refugee tent city to the north and west, around and even straddling the rail yard in some places, and had pretty much written off the LA population anyway…
She couldn’t help but notice the close proximity of Edwards to the town. Just over the desert. An easy flight…
Yes, she’d been an MP in the military. Yes, she’d seen the lengths the military would go to contain what they saw as a civilian threat.
Yes, she’d seen how the US government flat-out lied to people.
She clicked out of the map and took a deep breath. Entertaining any crazy thoughts like that was a waste of time and energy. Right now, she still had a job to do. A job she’d pledged to do.
And until the time came when it proved impossible to do it, she’d stay on the job.
* * * *
After an initial glance at casualty reports, Gia stopped looking at them. At last count twelve hours ago, easily over a million dead or dying, between the riots, earthquake, and ensuing chaos following the earthquake.
And, of course, Kite.
In the main LA basin, there were no functioning hospitals left west of Ontario or north of Santa Ana. Maybe farther south, but that might as well be a world away at this point.
They had a decent medical center in Santa Clarita that was still functioning under backup power, but she knew it was quickly becoming inundated by evacuees from other hospitals, as well as refugees who’d made their way up the I-5 corridor through the pass to their valley.
I need to cut off the route.
The ruthless thought both horrified her, and settled deep within her as a certainty. As more people tried to leave LA, they would head north, against the will of the National Guard, eventually overflowing from the San Fernando Valley area into their little slice of hell.
It would overwhelm them. Utterly.
The easy solution would be to close the highway and funnel people through Highway 14, except that 14 was closed by rockslides in several places. Her other option was to send them west, toward Simi Valley.
Gia, with Sharon trailing in her wake, made her way to the back of their facility, to the garage bay where the National Guard guys were already stirring.
Ah, to be young again. At this rate, extreme stress and a lack of sleep would kill her far sooner than a Kiter or anything else. “Corporal Edison, what kind of skills do your guys have?”
He looked a little confused. “Ma’am?”
“Are you all just grunts, or do you have any specialists amongst your ranks? Munitions, demolitions, snipers, anything?”
“Oh, I work for a highway contractor. I don’t have my certifications yet, but I’ve been training in explosive excavation.”
“Can you blow shit up without killing yourself?”
“I think so, yeah. Yes, ma’am, I mean.”
“Fanfuckingtastic. You just got deputized.”
“Uh, I’m not sure that’s legal, ma’am.”
“It is now. Come with me.”
She led him back to her new temporary office and pulled up detailed topography maps for him. “We’ve got a secure DOT highway facility here in town. I know for a fact they store explosives there that they use for road clearing projects. I strongly suspect it is currently unguarded. I’m going to need you to permanently shut down the 5 for me here, south of the junction, north of where the 210 dumps into it.”
His brow furrowed. “Did I just hear you correctly?”
“You did. It won’t stop everyone, but I’m hoping it derails enough of the mobs to keep the worst of them from flooding the area.”
He stared at the maps. “That’s a lot of people to try to keep out, no offense.”
“This next part is confidential,” she said.
He nodded.
“I got off the phone a little while ago with a deputy in West Covina.” She recounted her conversation to the corporal. The young guardsman looked even more shocked. “So unless you’ve got a better idea,” she concluded, “or unless you’ve got more explicit orders to the contrary, that’s my plan.”
“I haven’t received any new orders yet. I tried contacting our commander a few minutes before you came in and there was no response.”
“Then I guess you’re stuck with me for the time being. If that’s going to be a problem, you tell me now. I spent four years in as an MP, so I’m not a total noob, got it?”
“Yes, ma’am. It’s not a problem.”
She gave him a curt nod. “Good. LASD is nearly as tough as the farking military. For them to be giving up and giving in means that we don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell if a huge mob reaches us here. I suspect my local force will be down to less than fifty in a few days or sooner, as people realize the lights aren’t coming back on and they get their families the fuck out of the area. My job at this point is to give the population of Santa Clarita as much time as I can to get the hell out of here by slowing down whatever’s trying to crawl up their six. Whether or not they leave is up to them.”
He sat back, a stunned look on his face. “Can I ask you a question, ma’am?”
“You can ask me anything you want.”
He rubbed at his chin for a moment, at the slight shade of stubble there. “If I knew something that I wasn’t sure of, but had heard a lot of scuttlebutt about, would you want to know?”
“Something official?”
“I overheard my commander on the com the other day. Before he sent us here.”
“Spill it.”
He chewed on his lower lip for a moment. “I think something bad’s going to happen in Barstow in the next couple of days. All National Guard commanders are being told to funnel refugees and civilians to Barstow and then move their troops to Edwards. Not to Ft. Irwin. And they’re evaccing all personnel at the logistics base in Barstow.”
“Are they now?” Fuckery was afoot, for sure.
“And no one’s supposed to say anything to anyone about that,” he continued. “They set up tents, brought in water trucks and MRE shipments and portable latrines for the civilian authorities to deal with, and are pulling out. But that’s only if their troops didn’t see direct exposure to Kiters. Anyone whose units saw action fighting Kiters is supposed to stay and man the tent city and get tested for a couple of days before they pull back to Edwards.”
“Interesting.”
“And I heard something else.”
“Might as well tell me everything.”
“They were coordinating with one of the refineries to get a propane tanker train sent to Barstow.”
“Were they, now?”
“Between you and me, ma’am, I don’t want to see a Kiter. I want to go home, to Redding. I was stationed for four years in Germany working on Jeeps. I never even had to shoot anyone.”
“Then consider yourself lucky and follow my orders. Hopefully we can all get to Redding without dying in the process.”
“That sounds good to me, ma’am. My official orders are to follow local law enforcement command until told otherwise. Since I can’t get my commander, I’m good with following your orders.”
She didn’t want to tell the poor kid that the government would likely send them somewhere else in-country to fight Kiters.
The US government, however, didn’t own her ass anymore, and hadn’t since she was twenty-two and did her four years. Once she decided to leave Santa Clarita, she would be her own person.
She’d gone right into the Academy after her enlistmen
t was up, became a deputy, and went to college in her spare time to get her BA in law enforcement so she could move up the career ladder.
For the first time in six months, she was now grateful to be divorced. Otherwise, she’d still be living in Glendale with her ex.
As that sank in, she said, “I need to make a call.” She picked up the phone and dialed a number she knew by heart.
Fast-busy.
She might hate Dave Glover and wished he was dead plenty of times, but not like this. This was the first time she’d thought about him in several days. He was a mechanic for the county bus fleet. He’d also been her husband for almost ten years.
Until the day he came home, announced he wanted a divorce, and told her to move out of the apartment. Not like she could complain, it had been his when they’d met, inherited from his parents.
After she moved out, she discovered he’d moved his girlfriend in.
She’d gotten herself tested for the full panel of STDs, stood up for herself with a lawyer that cost her in fees almost the full cash settlement that she’d won from Dave, and moved into a tiny apartment less than a couple of miles from the station in Santa Clarita.
She tried his cell number twice more before pulling out her own cell and looking up the number for his garage.
A fast-busy tone.
Not that she could help him even if she could reach him.
But at least she’d wanted to give him a heads-up. To keep her conscience clear, if nothing else. No, he might not have done the same for her, but that wasn’t the principle.
She was better than him.
And that was the point.
* * * *
At least they didn’t have to try to feed the weekend warriors. They’d been shipped down with enough MREs to keep themselves going for nearly two weeks. Gia returned to the lobby to retrieve a status report from the deputy on duty, Ellen MacMahon.
The woman wore a grim expression as she handed Gia the tablet and a stylus.
Gia looked over the report and signed it. “Don’t come in tomorrow, Ellen.” Gia returned the tablet and stylus.
“What?”
“You and your husband, you live here in Santa Clarita, right?”
“Yeah, over in Stevenson Ranch. We share a house with my sister and parents. Why?”
“I’ll take care of the paperwork,” Gia said. “Just go. Medical leave. Your paid maternity leave starts now. Get your family and head north.”
Ellen stared at her, one hand protectively stroking the curve of her belly through her uniform shirt. This was her first child. She’d been on the job as a patrol deputy for five years after eight years in the military. “I heard on the channels that they want survivors sent to Barstow.”
“Yeah, don’t do that.”
Ellen slowly nodded. “Okay, Chief. Anything else?”
Gia nodded toward the service piece Ellen wore in an underarm holster, since her gun belt didn’t fit her anymore. “Keep that on you at all times. Get everyone out of your house and out of the area as soon as possible. I also wouldn’t head east until you’re at least up to Modesto.”
“Shit,” she muttered.
“I didn’t say anything,” Gia told her. Then she stuck out her hand. “It’s been an honor working with you.”
Ellen shook with her. “Thanks, Chief. Ditto.”
By six thirty, Gia was pleasantly surprised to find that one hundred and forty-five of her deputies had reported for duty.
The five who were missing lived south of Northridge, or farther.
She didn’t expect them to show up and hoped they were still alive.
She gathered them all together in the garage before they left in their patrol vehicles. Standing on a chair so they could all see and hear her, she addressed them, with the weekend warriors looking on from the side.
“Long story short, looks like I’m now the chief.” She gave them the abbreviated version of the story. “There’s no easy way to say this, but the shit has hit the fan and we are on our own. I’ve got a plan to permanently shut down the 5, but that won’t buy us much time. Any of you who have family outside of the Santa Clarita area and want to be let out of your shift to go get them, raise your hand. But you won’t be taking an official vehicle to do it. I can’t spare them.”
One man raised his hand. “I’m in Pacoma. It was quiet when I left, but I got two kids and my dad can’t drive anymore. My wife is at home with them. I’ve got our only car. I want to send them north.”
She nodded. “Go get them. If you want to come back after getting them packed and on the move, fine. Otherwise, I’ll mark you as on family leave with pay. Don’t know how long the systems will keep dishing out money.”
That announcement brought about a disconcerted rumbling.
She needed to nip that shit in the bud, and fast. “Look, I’m in the same boat all of you are. We’ve never faced anything like this before. I don’t know how automated the banking systems are or what’s going to happen. I’m under no illusions that LA is gone. Our jobs are gone. Some of us, our homes might not be gone yet, but they soon will be. This isn’t a matter of if, but a very imminent when. We have to save ourselves.”
One of the older deputies, but younger than her, spoke up. “Are we supposed to abandon everyone? Why are we even here if that’s what we’re going to do?”
“Fair question. We had approximately forty-five thousand residents in the Santa Clarita region, as of the last census two years ago,” she told them. “I don’t know how many have already left the area out of healthy fear or an abundance of caution. I’ll be calling on the head of the medical center and updating them and suggesting they start moving people out ASAP. I’ll also notify the mayor and city council. Start passing word in your patrol neighborhoods that people need to leave, and they need to do so to the north. What we’re going to do is give them a fighting chance to get the hell out before it’s too late. Where they go from here is not our problem. Also, warn them that within a week, or less, there will be no law enforcement or public safety coverage, and the power and water won’t be coming back on anytime soon.”
“How do we handle crimes?” another asked.
She wanted to answer “with extreme prejudice,” which was a term dredged up from her time in the military. “We’re under martial law. Anyone you see in the act of committing a violent crime, give them a warning to cease and desist, tell them to lay down their weapon, and then make the next bullet count if they fail to comply. Anyone suspected of Kite needs to be shot on sight. Don’t risk the contact to test and use the po-clo kits. If you come across looters, use your best judgment. If they’re orderly and unarmed, don’t go shooting grandmothers grabbing cans of soup from Vons. But if they’re threatening people or using violence, shoot to kill. There will be no ambulance service, understand me?”
Another wave of discontent rippled through the assembled officers.
Drawing herself up to her full five three, she jammed her fists against her hips. “Stop it. Right now. Anyone thinks they can’t do their job, step forward, but you leave your service sidearm and all your ammo here when you walk out. We’ll need that. You don’t seem to be understanding what I’m saying. Those of you who’ve seen action in the military, we’re there.”
She jammed a finger in the air. “This is our worst-case scenario times ten. A scenario so bad we never even planned for it because no one ever thought this confluence of events would happen. This might not be a terrorist incursion, but Kite turns people into enemy combatants and creates more as it goes. Our job is to follow behind the bulk of the people who choose to leave, cover their six, and give them as much time as we can to get to safety. Understood?”
“So why’d you let him take his sidearm?” another grumbled, indicating their colleague who’d just left to get his family.
She jumped off the chair and walked over to him, getting in his face…well, chest, as best she could. “Because he’s not pussing out on us, that’s why. He’s got a family. You?
??re single, aren’t you, Lorenzo?”
The deputy looked around and edged back a step. “Yeah?”
“I expect he’ll probably get his family packed and have his wife drop him off here on her way out of the city. If he doesn’t, well, he’s got kids to protect. You don’t have kids, then you don’t have a reason to bitch.”
“You don’t have kids.”
“Yeah, and I’m not pussing out, either. I’ve had less than two hours of sleep in the past seventy-two, so fuck you. You in, or out?”
Several of the other deputies did have kids, or at least significant others, or even extended family. They glared at Lorenzo.
He noticed. “I’m in, Chief,” he finally said. “Sorry,” he added with a mutter.
She stepped back and returned to stand on her chair. “Okay, so this is how it will go…”
Twenty minutes later, her deputies were heading out to start their patrols. “Remember,” she reminded them, “tell them we’re closing down the 5 to the south, and tell them to leave the area and head north.” She assigned four patrolmen to start diverting traffic on the freeway. “Now you all get out of here and stay safe. We’ve got two, maybe three days at the most before we completely shut down. I want you all alive when we do.”
Corporal Nick Edison walked over to her as the officers left. “Now what?”
“I need to get a couple of things squared away,” she said, “and then you and I will go out on recon.”
Chapter Five
Omega had been born and raised in the LA basin, but the mangled and dying city they were trying to escape bore little resemblance to his hometown. Between the riots, the Kite virus, and now the aftermath of a devastating earthquake, it would seem LA had finally hit rock-bottom in a way no one had ever envisioned outside of old Hollywood disaster movies.