Not until the fourth day had Geronimo located the spot where Blade had been captured. Then the mutant Warriors, the three genetically engineered hybrids who comprised Bravo Triad, had tried to trace the trail by scent and been thwarted by the deer musk. Only this very morning had the mutations finally located the helicopter landing site.
Poor Jenny and little Gabe.
Hickok glanced up at the afternoon sun, feeling the warmth on his skin.
Ordinarily June was one of his favorite months, with the chill of winter long since gone and the lush spring about to give way to the scorching heat of summer. But he scarcely noticed the scenic splendor of the Home as he hastened to his cabin, engrossed in pondering his friend’s abduction.
As near as Geronimo and the hybrids could deduce—and they were the best trackers in the Family—Blade had been walking on the dirt road about three miles from the compound when, for some unknown reason, he’d ventured into the forest to the south of the road. Forty yards into the vegetation was a clearing, and it was there that whoever waited in ambush had jumped the top Warrior. Although the kidnappers had gone to great lengths to eradicate their prints and the signs of a terrific struggle, enough telltale evidence remained to enable Geronimo and the trio of mutations to formulate a plausible scenario.
Hickok simmered at the recollection. Somehow, some way, someone had suckered his pard into the woods and sprung a trap. At least a dozen enemies had been involved, and Blade had put up quite a fight before they’d taken him prisoner. Thankfully, the vermin had wanted Blade alive.
But why? Why? Why?
And who the heck were they?
The notion of Blade being tortured in a dismal dungeon made Hickok’s blood boil. If the Warriors could just find one measly clue establishing the identity of the vermin, he’d lead the rescue mission himself. Maybe it was time to call in help, he speculated. Maybe it was time to notify the rest of the Federation.
One hundred and six years after World War Three, the country once known as the United States of America no longer existed. Barbarism reigned where previously a seemingly cultured civilization had prevailed.
Disparate organized factions ruled limited areas or certain cities, but the majority of the U.S. was now designated as the Outlands, referring to any and all territory outside of any recognized jurisdiction. In the Outlands life was cheap, survival of the fittest the law of the land. In the Outlands a life span of 30 qualified as exceptional.
But not all of the country had degenerated into darkness and savagery.
There were seven organized factions dedicated to preserving the worthwhile vestiges of prewar society, seven factions who had joined in a mutual defense treaty and dubbed themselves the Freedom Federation.
Although considerable distances separated many of them, each faction was pledged to dispatch aid to any other member of the alliance when called upon.
Hickok skirted a stand of trees, mulling over which faction he should contact first.
The least reliable in a pinch were the Moles, the inhabitants of a subterranean complex located 50 miles east of the Home. Less than a week prior to World War Three, a group of people who were certain that conflict was inevitable had fled far into the Red Lake Wildlife Management area, where they’d believed they would be safe, and dug a series of underground tunnels in which to live. Those tunnels had later been expanded into the complex, and the occupants had become known as the Moles.
The Clan and the Moles were the only other Federation members who, like the Family, were based in northern Minnesota.
Far off in Montana the Flathead Indians had reclaimed the former state as their own. Finally free of the white man’s yoke, they clung to their newfound freedom tenaciously. They had perfected the art of living naturally off the land, and many of them were excellent hunters, trackers, and trappers.
Between Minnesota and Montana, in the area now referred to as the Dakota Territory, reigned the Cavalry, an army of superb horsemen who were as indomitable as the wild horses they caught and rode.
Embracing a number of Plains and Rocky Mountain states and a few in the Southwest, the Civilized Zone owed its existence to the United States Government, which had relocated to Denver, Colorado, after the Russian attack on the nation’s capital. The culture and the standard of living in the Civilized Zone came the closest of any Federation member to approximating the prewar lifestyle—although a pale imitation at best—with one possible exception.
The Free State of California. As one of the few states to retain its administrative integrity after the war, and thanks to its abundant resources, California rated as the most technologically progressive in the entire Federation.
So there they were, Hickok thought to himself, ending his mental review of the Family’s allies. Which one should he notify first? Did it even make a difference? Because without a clue as to the head Warrior’s whereabouts, the combined might of the Freedom Federation was powerless to free him.
Blade was on his own.
Chapter Three
Berwin had the strangest dream.
He was walking across an expanse of grass toward a peculiar concrete bunker when a blond man in buckskins approached and addressed him.
“Howdy, pard.”
“Who are you?” Berwin asked.
The man in the buckskins laughed and slapped his right thigh. “That’s a dandy, pard! I reckon that mangy Injun put you up to it, right?”
“Why do you talk like that?” Berwin inquired.
“I don’t rightly know what you’re gettin’ at.”
“Why do you use those odd words?”
“Ain’t you ever heard Wild West lingo before?”
“No.”
“Then your ears are in for a treat. Actually, I like to palaver this way because I’m partial to the Old West. Oh, I went through the same schooling as everybody else, and I can shoot the breeze normal-like if I’m in a mind to, but it tickles my fancy to talk this way and drive that mangy Injun loco!”
The dream abruptly ended and Berwin became aware that someone was shaking his right arm. He opened his eyes and smiled when he saw Nurse Krittenbauer. “Hi, again.”
“Hi, handsome. I have your food,” she announced, and motioned at a gray cart beside her on which there was a steaming bowl of soup, two slices of buttered bread, and a glass of milk.
“What, no steak?”
“Sorry. But the doctor says you’ll have to eat soup for a couple of days, until your stomach adjusts to solids again. In three or four days you might be able to have a steak,” Nancy explained.
Berwin sat up. “Bring on the soup. I’m so hungry, I don’t care what I get to eat.”
“Chicken noodle soup is the soup of the day,” Nancy informed him.
“Tomorrow you’ll get pea soup.”
“Yummy,” Berwin said dryly.
Nurse Krittenbauer reached down and removed a tray from the second shelf on the cart, then neatly arranged the tray on his lap. “You dozed off again,” she commented while she transferred the bowl to the tray.
“I’m bored just lying here. I need exercise.”
“Have any interesting dreams?” she inquired offhandedly.
“Nothing much,” Berwin responded, leaning forward to sniff the tantalizing aroma from the soup.
“Like what?” Nancy asked as she placed the bread and the milk alongside the bowl.
“I had this strange dream about a really weird guy who talked like he was a reject from the days of the Old West,” Berwin divulged, his forehead creasing. “There I go again.”