“I can cut a patch from the hood of one of the trucks,” he said loudly. “It’s not as tough as boiler plate but it’s better than nothing.”
“We’ll work until we’re finished,” Forrest said, patting him on the shoulder with a grin. “And this time we’ll cover the lift deck with three feet of dirt!”
It was ten at night before they finished clearing the bodies from the cargo bay and patching the hole in the lift. Dr. West came into the cargo bay to look over the two women, taking Forrest and Ulrich aside.
“They’re sick,” he said slowly enough for Forrest to make him out, not wanting the women to overhear him. “I don’t think it’s anything communicable,” he said directly to Ulrich, “but I’ve given them TB tests to make sure it’s not tuberculosis. We’ll know in three days. Until then, at the very least, they should remain quarantined here in the bay. With some penicillin and hot food, they should be ready to join us inside within a week or two.”
He then turned to Forrest and made an OK with his fingers.
“Okay, Sean,” Forrest tried to say more quietly. “Thanks. Now would you mind going inside? We’ve got some dark business to take care of out here, and I don’t think your oath allows for you to be present.”
“Sure,” West said, glancing across the bay to where Major Benjamin Moriarty sat shackled to the fender of a truck before withdrawing to the tunnel.
When West was gone, Forrest walked over and freed Moriarty long enough to cuff his hands behind his back with Sullivan and Kane looking on. Then he shoved Moriarty across the bay toward the two women.
“It’s up to you, ladies,” he said, keeping a firm grip on the handcuffs. “What sort of justice do you want?”
One of the women backed away, afraid of Moriarty even now, but the other held her ground. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“I mean tell me what you want done and I’ll do it.”
Moriarty turned to look him in the eyes and smirked, so Forrest smashed in his front teeth with the frame of his .45, dropping him straight to his knees. “So what’ll it be, ladies?”
“Just shoot him,” the woman said quietly. “He’s not worth another minute of time.”
Forrest looked to Ulrich to see what she had said, and Ulrich drew a finger across his throat. He then hauled the battered major to his feet and shoved him over to the lift, knocking him back to his knees. Kane stepped onto the lift beside him, carrying a lantern, and Danzig pressed the up button to send them to ground level.
The lift locked into position at ground level and Moriarty looked up at them. “Fuck you bo—”
Forrest shot him through the mouth and he fell over dead, his spinal column severed. He dragged the body through the snow and threw it onto the pile as Kane climbed back up onto the Cat. Soon the lift was buried beneath three feet of landscaping, and the ’dozer was blown up with a stick of TNT. Both men then went into the basement, where Danzig stood waiting for them, carbine in hand, and the three of them entered the silo, sealing the blast door behind them.
The siege was over.
When Veronica and Melissa got their first look at Forrest, they both gasped and started to cry as they wrapped themselves around him.
“Shhh,” he said softly, holding them tight in each arm. “It’s not permanent.”
Veronica looked over Forrest’s shoulder at Dr. West, who stood against the wall in the corridor. “Is he lying, Sean?”
West shook his head. “He’ll likely have some hearing loss, but he looks a lot worse than he is. It was just the pressure wave.”
Forrest saw Maria Vasquez coming into the hall and he freed himself from Veronica and Melissa and went to her, folding her into his arms as she cried. “I’m sorry,” he whispered into her ear. “It’s my fault.”
She looked up at him and shook her head. “It’s what he wanted,” she said carefully, making sure he could read her lips. “And he had a good last year…”
BOOK THREE
Fifty-Eight
Eighteen months after the impact, Ester Thorn and Harold Shipman were visiting a former shopping mall in Honolulu. It was now a facility for growing hydroponic rice. The horticulturalist giving the tour was a brunette in her late twenties named Sandra Hayes, and it was plain to both Ester and Shipman that she was very proud of the facility she had helped to create.
“And the best part,” Sandra was saying with great alacrity, “is that we’ll be able to harvest three crops a year.”
“Three?” Ester said, stopping to lean against her cane. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely,” Sandra said, smiling brightly. “And there’s no reason we can’t duplicate this facility all through the Islands. You don’t need a giant building like this either. Any building can be converted in this same way, and not just for growing rice. The volcanic soils in these islands are excellent.”
“What about the lighting?” Ester asked. “Most of these bulbs were made specifically for growing food indoors, were they not?”
“Lighting continues to be the one problem,” Sandra said, turning glum for the first time. “We only have a limited number of them on the island, and though regular fluorescent bulbs can be used, there are still only so many of them available. So unless we can find a way to manufacture lighting domestically… we will eventually have to return to the mainland and see if there are any department stores still standing.”
Ester turned to Shipman. “We’re still up against it, Harold.”
“One step at a time, Ester,” Shipman said calmly. “We’ve made an awful lot of progress in a year and a half and these indoor facilities have already begun to contribute.”
He turned to Sandra, asking, “Have you worked with the mushroom farmers at all, Miss Hayes?”
“No,” she said. “I know Bobbi Pouha from the university in Manoa, but we haven’t really been in contact since the big push for indoor farming last year. I know that she’s very good. She knows her shrooms, that’s for sure.”
Shipman chuckled. “I understand they’ve had a couple of setbacks. I was wondering if you knew anything about that.”
“I believe those were mostly climate-related,” Sandra said. “And I think they’ve got things straightened out. Fungus can be tricky.”
“I don’t know how anyone can eat it myself,” Ester said. “But I’m glad it’s going to be available. We’re only a month ahead of our food demand.”
“I honestly think we’re going to be okay,” Sandra said. “At least for the next couple of years… and who knows? We may have sunlight by then. The sky has begun to clear some, even though most of us still need a light meter to tell.”
“Thank you very much for the tour,” Ester said. “I’m going on the closed circuit television in a couple of days, so I need to collect all the good news I can.”
“You’re very welcome,” Sandra said. “Please come back.”
During the drive back to the motel where Ester lived on the top floor, she sat staring out the window at the dead palms along the road, the brown landscape. Hawaii had been pretty lucky in terms of snow. Not a great deal of it had fallen, and what little had accumulated melted once the temperature rose into the forties during the second summer. They were heading into their second winter now and the average temperature was closer to thirty-five.
“The Navy has been after me about an expedition to the mainland,” she said with a sigh.
“You’re still opposed to the idea?” Shipman asked.
“They’re asking to disconnect one of the carriers from the power grid, the idea being that they can fit more men aboard and bring back more supplies. Which I’m not entirely opposed to, but it would mean asking Honolulu to cut back even further on its power consumption, and people have become somewhat spoiled these past six months. Not to mention that the crew would need to take a large portion of the dry goods we have in reserve.”