True Fiction (Ian Ludlow Thrillers #1)(43)
“Holy shit,” Margo said, her eyes wide with fear.
But Ronnie whooped with delight, a big grin on his face. “That’s the New World Order knocking on my door. It’s about fucking time.”
He ran back to the main room, Ian and Margo right behind him. They all stopped in front of the big-screen TV and stared at the multiple camera feeds. Ronnie’s house was obliterated. All that was left of it was a smoking crater and bits of flaming debris scattered all over the compound. One of the cows was on fire, running around the corral, sending up smoke signals. For Ian, seeing the destruction on TV made it seem unreal, as if they were watching something he’d written instead of something that was actually happening. But if he’d written it, who was the hero?
Ian glanced at the paperback of Death Has No Mercy in his hand. The tagline read: Nothing stands in his way. The only fear Straker knows is what he sees in the eyes of his enemies.
He looked up again and saw Ronnie grinning. Ronnie wasn’t angry that his home was destroyed—he was thrilled. Everything he believed was finally coming true.
Ian had always suspected that the happiest day of a survivalist’s life would be the one when the world ended. Now he knew it was true. It was validation for all of Ronnie’s psychological suffering and proof that he wasn’t crazy.
“Is that the best you’ve got, you pussies?” Ronnie yelled gleefully at the ceiling. “Bring it on.”
Cross looked down on the destruction like a malevolent God hurling lightning bolts from the heavens at the mortals who displeased him. This is what happens when you incur my wrath, he thought. The destruction gave Cross a hard-on, which, fortunately, nobody noticed because everyone’s attention was on-screen. Even so, he put his hands in his pockets to puff out his pants. He glanced at Victoria and wondered if she got off on it, too. She’d probably go home tonight and whip the skin off the back of some lucky bastard.
The smoke cleared on the screen. He saw the crater where the house had once stood. Ludlow, French, and whomever they’d come to visit were now bone fragments and clumps of charred flesh. The backstory on this operation was finally erased. Now all that was left to deal with were the politics, though in some ways he favored this kind of action. It was clear and decisive.
He saw the Mustang, covered in dust and ash, its windows shattered, but otherwise intact. Not good.
“Take out the Mustang,” Cross told Victoria. “I don’t want to leave any tracks that lead back to Ludlow or Seattle.”
Victoria tapped a key. Another Hellfire missile flew from the drone. The explosion wiped out the car and left another crater. It was like using a tank to kill a fly but at least now the car and its contents were dust.
“Bring the drone home and send a team to collect whatever’s left of the bodies for fingerprint, dental, and DNA analysis,” Cross said. “I want irrefutable confirmation of the kills.”
Long Valley, Nevada. July 20. 4:15 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.
They waited thirty minutes after the drone flew away before they decided it was safe to leave the bunker and go above. Even so, Ronnie insisted on being armed. He took one of the rocket-propelled grenade launchers with him from the vault. Ian brought his Straker paperback.
They emerged to scorched earth, two craters, and smoking rubble. The pickup truck was engulfed in flames but the bulldozer and tractor remained, seemingly undamaged. The air reeked of burning rubber, wood, gasoline, and cow flesh. Margo squatted and picked up a few coins from the blackened earth.
“I’m sorry, Ronnie,” Ian said. “I shouldn’t have come here. I brought this on you.”
“It’s not your fault,” Ronnie said. “This day was coming sooner or later and I was getting tired of waiting for it. But it’s not over. They’ll be back.”
Ian knew he was right. They would come for their remains and to clean up the crime scene. He wondered how long they had before the cleaners arrived. A couple of hours? A day? The thought made him look at the book in his hand. Clint Straker would relish the fight. Ian would, too, if he were writing it instead of living it. The fights were the scenes that every reader waited for and they almost wrote themselves. That’s because Straker was totally in his element, one man up against impossible odds, armed only with his determination and cunning. God, how Ian wished he were writing that scene now instead of standing there.
“We have to get out of here.” Margo nodded at the bulldozer and tractor. “Those aren’t going to get us very far and the bad guys will notice right away if they’re missing. We’ll have to go on foot and try to cover our tracks behind us.”
“I’ve got a big woody,” Ronnie said.
“Good for you,” Margo said, annoyed. “Is it that time of day for you or are you aroused by the idea of us running into the mountains and dying of exposure?”
Clint Straker doesn’t run from anything.
That thought made Ian understand why he had such a strong urge to write. He didn’t want to escape the situation he was in. He wanted to beat it, the way Straker would. He looked down at the book in his hand, the one he wrote about the character he created. And in that moment, a chill passed over him, taking with it all of his anxieties. He knew what he had to do.
“I’m talking about the 1974 Ford Country Squire station wagon that I’ve got hidden in a cave,” Ronnie said. “Cars manufactured after 1975 all have electronic ignitions that’ll be fried by an EMP blast. This one is blast safe and it has wood veneer paneling on the body.”