Immediately Forgettable

Chapter 20

As I fired up the truck and turned it off the track and onto the service roads, I thought I heard someone yelling stop. It may have been my hyperactive imagination, or I could be in for a real brief car chase.

I barreled down the road, keeping my eye on the satellite dish prize. I knew the compound was huge, and I had no idea how long it would take me to reach the communications center. I just hoped I could make it before I was stopped.

The dishes got bigger and bigger before me, and I arrived at them much quicker than I expected. Mostly because I thought they were further away, but what I had originally thought were "decent-sized" dishes were in fact, humongous.

I stopped the truck and got out, staring up at the monoliths. Concrete base with steel beams and wires. How was I going to topple it? If only I had a truck filled with highly combustible fluids.

I pulled the hose from beneath the truck and sprayed as much of the dishes I could (the hose had surprisingly good reach). Then I parked the truck in a small alcove beneath the twin dishes, tank facing out, and sprayed a stream of fuel away from it, toward the fields.

I removed a flare from the emergency kit I found in back of the driver's seat and ran to the edge of where I had sprayed. At this point I could taste the fumes, so I had no doubt that I was covered in fuel, too. But I could feel the wind at my back, and hoped it would be enough.

I lit the flare and dropped it at the edge of where my fuel fuse ended. The flames reached out toward the truck, and I raced the other direction into the field. I kept running with the stalks slashing my face and arms as I tried to put as much distance between me and the truck that I could.

I kept running until an explosion lifted me off the ground and threw me even further into the field. Flaming bits fell around me, none hitting me, but a few igniting some dry stalks in the Kansas heat. Things were about to get even hotter.

I picked myself off the ground and ran further away from the dishes. I finally made it to a utility road between fields, and I turned to see what I had done.

The dishes were titled at odd angles and engulfed in flames; the metal antennae at the center of the dishes twisting from the heat. A huge plume of black smoke poured upward into the sky. Where the truck had been was no longer discernible, just a black crater in the side of the platform, with charred scars pushing out from the center.

The field immediately in front was also burning, adding even more smoke into the air. My eyes teared and I could feel the smoke in my throat, but as I looked at the mess I had created, I felt one thing: Pride.

The flames. The smoke. The charred remains of a communications station. It all said Terry was here. Terry did this.

Just try to forget me now.

My phone erupted in a flurry of alerts that had been waiting to get through since this morning. Service! The signal was not strong, probably picking up from a nearby civilian tower, but strong enough.

Most of the messages were from Sloane getting progressively angrier. I texted and called him, leaving a message to let him know it was time to send the troops in. He called back quickly — it was a day of miracles — and said he was on it. And that my smoke plume had already garnered a lot of attention.

Terry was here.

So that was it. I started making my way up toward the main building, figuring I'd get there as the CIA and Homeland Security swooped in and cleaned it all up. Then I remembered that Jen was still a prisoner, so I started running.

She may not need rescuing, but if she did, I'd prefer it be me.