HOMELAND: Falling Down (Part 1 of the HOMELAND Series) Read online

  “Hands up,” Hank said.

  The man glanced over his shoulder and bolted his hands into the air, dropping the bag with a clatter. “Whoa! Take it easy.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Deputy Todd Ellison. Who the hell are you?”

  Hank saw that the name on the uniform matched the one the man gave him. He lowered his weapon. “Sheriff Hank Sexton.”

  “Sheriff Sexton? What are you doing here?”

  “Trying to find your boss. You know where he is?”

  “Yeah. He’s up on the interstate with eight deputies. Dead. They’re all dead.”

  Hank noticed blood on the deputy’s uniform. It wasn’t his. “How?”

  Ellison’s hands trembled as he put another M-9 pistol into his bag. “A gang of pickup trucks came through like bats out of Hell on the wrong side of the freeway. One of ‘em ran head-on into a family in a minivan. The rest crossed over the median and caused another wreck. Blocked all four lanes. More cars came. Everybody’s getting the hell outta Knoxville. It was so dark, they just kept piling up.”

  The deputy found some extra magazines and grabbed those as well. “What was left of the guys from the trucks started shooting at us when we got there to work the accident. They caught us off-guard. We were outgunned. They tore us to pieces. Our guys were getting hit one after another. Then the sheriff went down right next to me. Shot through the lung. I couldn’t stop the blood. Nothing I could do but hold him.”

  Ellison rifled through a cabinet and grabbed a few loose shotgun shells. “His eyes were wide open. He knew he was dying. He couldn’t talk. He just stared at me with those eyes as he died in my arms. I ran. It was all I could do. Barely got away.”

  “Who’s in charge?”

  “Nobody. The department fell apart after that. Cops have families of their own to look after. I came back for extra guns and ammo. Nobody else is using it.”

  “I need your help. A gang is holding some people hostage a few miles from here and I’m going after them.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, it’s every man for himself.”

  “You’re still an officer of the law.”

  “Law? There ain’t no law no more.” Ellison shouldered the heavy bag. “Good luck, Sheriff.” He pushed past Hank, and disappeared down a hallway.

  Hank returned to his cruiser to find Brandon still staring out the window.

  “How did it go?” Brandon asked.

  “They’re not going to help.”

  “What are we gonna do.”

  “We’re going home.”

  “You can’t do that. What about my mom and dad? They’ll kill them. You can’t just let them die.”

  “It’s suicide to go alone.”

  “What if it was your family?”

  Hank looked up to a picture of Betty and Maggie pinned to the visor above the steering wheel. “No promises, but I’ll do what I can.” He started the car and continued west toward Knoxville.

  They drove into a nearby subdivision. It looked like a ghost town. Shadows in windows caught the corner of his eye, but disappeared when he turned to look at them. The vehicle crept along empty streets, looking for the slightest sign of life.

  Some homes had their doors kicked in. Others had broken windows. The place was a suburban ghost town.

  “Over there!” Brandon called out.

  It was a woman. She lay face down in the brown grass three houses away, her unkempt brunette hair stirring in the frigid breeze.

  Hank stopped in front of the house and ran to the woman’s aid. “Hey! Are you okay?” As he got close, he saw that the prone figure was young, late teens or early twenties. He reached to take the woman's pulse. The skin was ice cold. She was dead. Hank rolled her onto her back. The frozen earth had sucked the last bit of warmth from the pale flesh, lacing the comely face with a mask of frost.

  Hank looked into dead brown eyes then down to a ragged shotgun wound in a ruined chest.

  “Get outta here!” a voice called from the house.

  Hank looked up, searching the broken windows for a silhouette.

  “I said get outta here!” the voice yelled again. This time it was followed by the unmistakable sound of a shotgun chambering a round.

  Hank raised his hands. “Don’t shoot. I’m a lawman.” He kept his hands up. “Did you kill this woman?”

  “She ain’t no woman. She’s a damn locust.” It was an old man’s voice. A move-in from up north, judging by the accent.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “She came with the rest of ‘em from the interstate. They went begging door to door at first. Then they started kicking in doors, running people out of their own houses, stealing food. They cleaned out the whole neighborhood like hungry locusts. I got that one early this morning. Bitch and her boyfriend were going to rob me.”

  Hank noticed a baseball bat lying near the body.

  “Now get the hell off my property unless you want to join her.”

  Hank backed to his car slowly with his hands raised.

  He left the subdivision and continued west on the back roads. Brandon kept his silence.

  Hank stopped near a crossroads east of Knoxville. “We should be close. Do you know the way from here?”

  “No.”

  “You remember the name of the hotel?”

  “It was a Comfort Inn near Strawberry Plains. My mom and dad are in one of the rooms.”

  “I know the place.”

  Hank parked across the street from the hotel. The gang had turned the place into an impromptu fortress. Upturned hulks of burnt out cars were placed end to end, forming a wall that encompassed the inn as well as the gas station next door. Riflemen with binoculars paced the roof six stories up. The hum of generators blended with sounds of voices and equipment inside the perimeter. It was a busy place.

  Hank uncuffed Brandon. “I’ll leave the engine running. Get in the driver’s seat after I get out.” He unloaded his sidearm, putting the magazine in his pocket, and laid it on the passenger seat. He then grabbed the bag of meds. “Be ready.”

  “The leader’s name is Dante,” Brandon offered.

  “Thanks.” Hank got out and walked to the compound. He stopped in front of a wrecker sitting in a gap in the makeshift wall.

  A man with a shotgun stood up in the back of the truck. “That’s far enough.”

  Hank raised his hands for the second time that day. “I’m unarmed.”

  “So?”

  “I need to talk to Dante.”

  “Dante don’t take visitors.”

  Hank shook the bag, rattling the pills. “I have something for him.”

  The man spoke into a walkie-talkie, nodded, and thumped the top of the vehicle’s cab.

  The heavy truck awoke with a grumble, then backed up to reveal the interior of the stronghold.

  Tractor trailers sat side by side on the asphalt, each filled with a different type of good ranging from guns to canned food. These were under heavy guard.

  A man appeared behind Hank with a rifle leveled at his back.

  “Keep walking,” the man ordered.

  The rifleman ushered Hank to the center of the courtyard.

  A thirtyish man with tan skin and black hair walked out of the hotel at the head of an entourage of bandits. He looked Hank up and down and said, “What the hell do you want, cop?”

  “You must be Dante,” Hank said.

  Dante replied, “Let me guess. You’re here to arrest me.” His men laughed.

  “I’m here to make a deal.”

  Dante looked amused. “Well? Let’s hear it.”

  “You have two people here.”

  “I got a lot of people here.”

  “A doctor and his wife. I came to trade for them.”

  “What are you offering?”

  Hank gave the bag a rattle. “Medicine.”

  Dante laughed and pointed to a trailer. The interior looked like a mobile pharmacy. “Does it look like I need medicine?”
r />   “You could always use more.”

  Dante waved to someone and the couple came out of the hotel into the parking lot.

  The woman helped her husband as he limped on an improvised crutch fashioned from a hockey stick. He held a crudely splinted leg off the ground as the pair ambled into the open ground.

  “You got balls. I’ll give you that, but you’ll have to do better than a bag of aspirin.”

  “I can get food. Maybe more medicine.”

  Dante looked through the open gate at Hank’s police cruiser. “I like your car.”

  “How am I supposed to get back home?”

  Dante shrugged. “Take it or leave it.”

  The wife spoke up. “We’re people. You can’t trade us like animals.”

  Dante gave a look to one of his men.

  The henchman slapped the woman. “Shut up!”

  Dante asked Hank, “They friends of yours?”

  “Nope.”

  “Now you got me curious. Why would you come all the way out here and risk your life to bargain for two people you don’t even know?”

  “It’s the right thing to do.”

  “Are you a cop or a boy scout?” Dante laughed. “Either way, you’re full of shit. The doc stays. The bitch will cost you your car.”

  “You can’t do this!” The husband yelled.

  The henchman crashed the butt of a pistol against his head.

  Dante smirked. “Who’s gonna stop me.”

  Gunshots popped from the roof. Hank hit the ground. He heard an engine roaring toward him. Then more shots. He looked up to see Brandon race the squad car through the open gate, running down two of Dante’s men in the process. One hand steered the car while the other held Hank’s AR-15 out the window. He fired into Dante’s crew, sending them diving for cover.

  Brandon ground to a halt next to his parents. The teenager raised the rifle and put two rounds into the henchman guarding them.

  Hank dashed to the car and helped shove Brandon’s parents inside before Dante and his retinue regained their senses.

  “Go!” Hank ordered as he climbed through the passenger window. He grabbed his pistol from the seat and slammed a magazine home.

  Tire squealed. Shots pinged against sheet metal as bullets ripped through the car. The engine screamed as Brandon stood on the petal.

  The wrecker moved to block their escape. Hank leaned out and unloaded into the truck’s windshield. It veered left into the wall of cars. Metal ground against metal, but the wrecker kept moving forward.

  Brandon steered for the shrinking gap in the wall. The wrecker snagged the back of Hank’s car, ripping off the rear bumper and spinning the vehicle through the exit into the street beyond.

  “Go! Go! Go!” Hank yelled as he reloaded his pistol.

  Brandon mashed the gas. Tires wailed once again and they were off.

  Dante swallowed his fury as he watched the battered car speed away.

  “Let’s get ‘em!” one of his men barked.

  “No,” Dante said calmly. “Not yet. We know where to find them. It’s written all over their car.”

  Hank’s patrol car was smoking and shot to pieces, but it still ran. At least for now.

  Brandon tossed the rifle to Hank with a smile. “I found it in the trunk.”

  “Lookout!” Brandon’s father yelled from the back seat.

  A hundred people milled about the road ahead like a herd of lost sheep.

  Brandon turned the wheel and slammed the brakes, stopping just short of slamming into the crowd.

  One of the walkers slammed a fist into the hood. “Get outta the car!”

  Others joined in, surrounding the vehicle, beating on the cab and reaching into windows.

  Brandon’s mother screamed. One of them had her by the hair. His father jammed his crutch into the assailant’s jaw. “Get us out of here!”

  Brandon put the car into reverse and pulled clear of the mob, they ran toward the vehicle as he frantically tried to turn around.

  He completed the maneuver just as the throng reached the car. He took off, wheels spinning, spraying their pursuers with dirt and grit.

  “That road’s no good,” Hank said, “We’ll have to try the interstate.”

  He guided Brandon to the next on-ramp. Thankfully, the highway was clear. Hank breathed easier once they were speeding down the open road.

  The explosion caught him off guard. Blinding light was followed by choking smoke, the squeal of rending metal, and searing heat. Then nothing but cold, numb darkness.

  4

  EDUARDO

  “Hello, Mr. Garcia. Welcome back.” The hotel doorman greeted Eduardo in front of his luxury apartment building. “I see you have a guest.”

  The immaculately dressed man nodded to the gorgeous twenty-something at Eduardo’s side. “Welcome. Enjoy your stay.”

  She didn’t answer, her attention focused on the smartphone in her hand as her thumbs nimbly danced across its face.

  Eduardo answered. “Thanks. I’m sure we will.”

  Another night. Another intern. He couldn’t deny the convenience of working at a place with a continuous supply of beautiful young women. Picking one up on the way home was easy as stopping off for a six-pack. One stop shopping at its best.

  “It’s a clear night. You’ll have a beautiful view of the city.” The man opened the door for Eduardo and his date, giving Eduardo a sly wink. “Lucky dog.”

  Eduardo and his date crossed the extravagant lobby to the elevator. The centerpiece of the space was a fireplace topped by a massive mirror and flanked by ornate murals that Eduardo guessed to be Greek revival. The regal scene was crowned by a gigantic round crystal chandelier that sparkled as if it was enchanted.

  He said, “Not bad, eh?”

  The girl never looked up, her digits continuing their Fred Astaire impersonation on the electronic dance floor of her phone.

  Eduardo guessed she didn’t even know who Fred Astaire was. “Don’t your thumbs ever get tired?”

  No answer.

  A family walked up beside them as they stood at the elevator. The parents were around Eduardo’s age with two kids. The oldest, a teenage girl, had her nose glued to the screen of her cell phone.

  The father looked at Eduardo’s date and back to his own daughter. “These kids and their phones. Makes me wish for the old days when she was still Daddy’s Little Girl. Am I right?”

  Eduardo smiled awkwardly. “Uh. Yeah. Good old days.”

  The intern’s phone rang, playing some annoying hip-hop ring tone Eduardo had never heard before.

  The girl put the device to her ear and jumped into juicy gossip “No way!” She said so loudly that everyone in the lobby could hear. “What did you say? I never liked her. You know that’s not even her real hair.”

  Eduardo tapped her on the shoulder. She put up a perfectly manicured finger, turned her back, and continued to dish.

  “I heard she was having a fling with her boss. What? Oh!” She laughed. “You’re so bad!”

  It was no use.

  The father chuckled and said, “Maybe we’ll get lucky and phone service will go down. Maybe then we could get to know our little girls again.”

  “Yeah.”

  The elevator door opened.

  “You take this one,” said the dad. “Good luck.”

  Eduardo blushed. “You too.”

  He led his date to his place like a shepherd herding an absent minded sheep. He tossed their coats onto the overstuffed velvet couch as he took in the view from huge picture window that stretched from the floor to the nine-foot ceiling.

  The doorman was right. The icy New York air was unusually clear tonight.

  The country was going to shit, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at Manhattan. This place always proved immune to conditions beyond the East and Hudson Rivers. Sure, there were the protests, but the restaurants were still open. The cabs still ran. Broadway still sang and danced. Eduardo had spent the last few hours reporting
from his anchor’s chair of the violence and chaos gripping the nation from sea to shining sea, but the lights of Midtown told a different story. They glowed in brilliant defiance of the state of emergency. The only hint of anything amiss was the thinner-than-usual traffic in the streets. Colorful adverts and scrolling marquees painted the picture of a town still full of energy and optimism. The metropolis stretched out before him for miles, glowing with lights that flashed and flowed as if it were a living thing. In a lot of ways, that’s exactly what it was. He shared the city’s pulse, energy, and personality. It’s life.

  He looked north across Central Park to see the Bronx smoldering in the distance—a few acres of grass and trees were all that separated the borough from Midtown, but it was a world away as far as the Manhattan high rollers here were concerned.

  Eduardo wondered if this was how Nero and Marie Antoinette felt as they watched their empires burn from the comfort of their palace walls.

  Should I play my fiddle or let them eat cake?

  He called to his date as he looked out the window. “Great view tonight. Come and see for yourself.”

  “What?” The girl lowered her phone a bit.

  Eduardo pointed at the window. “The city. The lights. Great view.”

  “Yeah. Pretty,” she said without looking up.

  “If ya can’t beat ‘em...” He picked a tablet from the dining table and checked his office email. There were a few messages, but nothing that couldn’t wait. He went online and scanned the news.

  He read the first lines of the lead story.

  Vice President Dead, Tophet Sworn In

  Secretary of Homeland Security, Karl Tophet, was sworn in as President of the United States today minutes after The Vice President was officially pronounced dead.

  In a surprising move, the rule of Presidential succession was changed to put the Secretary of Homeland Security in third place behind the Vice President. This change means that Karl Tophet is now Commander in Chief. The new President’s first action was to fire more than twenty general officers from all branches of the armed forces. The reasons given ranged from integrity violations and sexual misconduct to alleged treason. Some have even been detained for questioning over suspected ties to radical organizations here in the U.S. This brings the total number of general officers either fired, forced to retire, or arrested in the last year to thirty-six. Additionally, more than three hundred commanders at lower levels have been relieved of duty or arrested in similar fashion.