Deep Thaw (Denver Burning Book 3) Read online

  Deep Thaw

  Part Three of the Denver Burning series

  by Algor X. Dennison

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright 2015 Algor X. Dennison

  This is Part Three of the Denver Burning series, in which a federal agent named Carson delves into the origin of the man-made disaster that brought down the country in Part One, Get Out of Denver and Part Two, Take Back Denver. His story continues in Part Four: Assault on Cheyenne Mountain.

  You can also sign up here to be notified when new books are released from Algor X. Dennison, and get an exclusive free ebook in this series, Denver Overrun, following two police officers during the fall of Denver.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: The Call

  Chapter 2: Into the Hills

  Chapter 3: Night Attack

  Chapter 4: Emergence

  Chapter 5: Unpleasant Encounter

  Chapter 6: The Lone Survivor of Hemingway Circle

  Chapter 7: Prepper’s Paradise

  Chapter 8: Breakaway

  Chapter 9: Through the Ruined City

  Chapter 10: Secondary Objectives

  Chapter 11: Two Agents in a Pod

  Chapter 12: Left Behind

  Chapter 13: South Together

  Chapter 14: Car Chase

  Chapter 15: Contingencies

  Chapter 1: The Call

  The call came while Carson Anders was sparring at a west Denver gym. He was in the middle of a punch/kick Sanshou combo he hoped would break through Rafe’s defenses and finish the match quickly. He was getting tired, and his UFC-hopeful opponent was three years younger and snapping the punches out like a demon. When Carson’s phone let out a single, sustained tone, he quickly backed off, his mind reeling. After eight years of silence, the call had finally come.

  Technically, it stopped coming. His cell phone was chiming, but it was a dead-man’s switch; as long as someone at a regional HQ pressed the button every fifteen minutes, he was on permanent standby. But if the button wasn’t pressed, it meant one of three things.

  One was that the system had somehow failed. This wasn’t likely; the triple-redundant signal had never failed yet. Another possibility was that HQ was purposely sending out an alert because the country faced imminent danger, and they were unable to communicate more detail via other means. Or, least likely, it could be that there was no one left alive to keep pressing the button.

  At the moment, the why was irrelevant. Protocol was crystal clear: all agents were now on active alert. This was not a drill.

  But the sandy-haired, solidly-built Marine veteran couldn’t quite believe it was really happening as he left the ring and opened his gym bag. It wasn’t that he doubted the technology; he carried a cell phone, a satphone, and an old-school pager that were all configured to maintain a connection at all times. If all three failed to register a signal from HQ, that was as final as it got, and this was exactly what was happening now. But it had never happened before, not in the eight years since he’d been recruited. The adrenaline from the sparring was replaced with a stronger jolt. This could be for real.

  “Everything all right, man?” Rafe asked, noticing Carson lingering over the phone he’d pulled out of his bag. Rafe was slapping around the heavy bag as he waited. “You need to head out early?”

  “No, I’m good,” Carson lied, and checked the satphone, and then the pager, which was still buzzing at him. Protocol gave him thirty minutes to drop whatever he was doing, get to his vehicle, and get on the road. If the alert hadn’t been rescinded by that point, he needed to be en route to the secure location. Carson’s Jeep was parked right outside the gym, and he didn’t have anything else to do for the moment but wait and make certain the alert was for real. So he decided to remain where he was for the time being in the hope that he’d soon get an all-clear. He trotted back onto the mat and took up a fighting stance. Rafe left the bag and rushed in.

  Carson’s mind was racing, and it was only by throwing himself into his kickboxing moves that prevented him from breaking out in a cold sweat. Could this be for real? It certainly looked like it, but… his mind rebelled at the implications. If this was a legitimate alert, it was a critical situation, and he was burning precious minutes. He didn’t want to admit that his life might be about to change irrevocably.

  Deep Thaw.

  That was the name of the covert program, a black on black inner cog in the Department of Homeland Security. His recruiter had assured him it wouldn’t show up on any official record, and only a fellow agent would recognize the name. Not a single congressman had ever heard of it, and most of Homeland Security didn’t even know what it entailed. Deep Thaw was an anti-sleeper cell, an attempt to beat the bad guys with one of their own tactics.

  The program had its origins during the height of the Cold War, to ensure continuity of government in the event of a nuclear shootout that left some alive. An infrastructure had been established, with certain goals and priorities appropriate to 50’s and 60’s America, but Deep Thaw had never seen action. 9/11 was a wake-up call for a generation of leadership that had grown complacent, enjoying the security and prosperity of the 90’s and who belatedly realized that just because Russia was no longer directly threatening to nuke the U.S. didn’t mean America was safe. Certain key members of government who had knowledge of Deep Thaw saw its need, and dusted the program off, modernizing it and moving it under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security.

  The recent brushfire wars had provided Deep Thaw’s recruiters with plenty of material, and independent agents were pre-positioned near locations deemed critical to the survival of government. They were equipped and trained to respond to any type of disaster that might overwhelm the government, and each was given specific objectives that they were responsible for achieving in the event of activation; independent and resourceful, able to act without any outside support or direction. For security reasons, they were not to know each other and have no official chain of command or communication system.

  The utter secrecy of Deep Thaw was a safeguard against infiltration and disruption from the outside, but it was also a simple hedge against being de-funded and scuttled by shifting political tides. The utility of such a program was that it remained out of sight, out of mind, until the day when it became absolutely critical.

  The recruiter, a woman whose name he never learned, said there were maybe thirty or forty agents throughout the country in and around major cities, with a handful of support staff in Washington, California, and the Mid-West. They were officially attached to a different long-term program in Washington, also secret but more prosaic in its duties.

  Deep Thaw’s protocol mandated that if a catastrophic national emergency ever struck, one that threatened the government’s chain of command and rule of law, the sleeper agents would go to active status. But they wouldn’t be operational – not yet.

  “You aren’t first responders,” she’d told him. “We have plenty of those. You guys are the backup, the clean-up crew. You are invisible, and you will move around looking for situations where a nudge is needed; when you find one, nudge it. In the category of disaster we’re talking about here, one that threatens the long-term viability of the nation, we can’t depend entirely on the success of first responders. There’s the possibility that they might all be neutralized. We need an absolute fail-safe, a non-network of independent agents that can weather anything, including the risks we haven’t even dreamed up yet, and still remain operational. Agents that can wait until the timing is right and then come out of hiding to restore order.” She’d paused. “Your profile fits our needs exactly.”

  Rafe came in fast, interrupting his reverie, and for the ne
xt several seconds he was on the ropes. Then he broke free and used his superior height to keep Rafe at bay.

  There was a small cabin in the mountains to the west, hardened and stocked with supplies. It was shielded within and surrounded without by razor wire and other nasty surprises to keep vandals out. If the signal ever stopped and didn’t come back online within half an hour, he was to consider himself active and proceed straight to the cabin. That was the only direction he had received, other than brief monthly check-ins conducted via cell phone. Inside the cabin, there were sealed orders, directives specifically for him that would tell him what he needed to do after activation. He’d never seen them; he’d never even opened the door to the cabin. He’d been up to it once, to learn the route.

  That was his life. Eight years collecting black-source paychecks in exchange for doing nothing. Not too bad, all things considered. He had plenty of time to keep fit, stay sharp on the gun range, and devote time to reading, something he’d never gotten enough of in the military. The money wasn’t spectacular, but the benefits were fine, and he didn’t need much. It was enough to buy a book or two each week: mostly history, but some fiction too.

  It felt good to settle into his place, focus on his personal preparedness, and watch the world go by. Always ready, knowing he had a higher purpose that the stressed-out crowds around him couldn’t even guess at.

  There were yearly drills, and once a month he went out of town for a “professional training retreat”, which was always fun. He never met a fellow Deep Thaw agent, however, at least not that he knew. They just attached him to a nearby military exercise or FBI/CIA training meet.

  After the first few years of near total silence from the system, he’d stopped expecting anything to happen. When asked what he did for a living, his arranged cover story was that he worked from home doing vague IT stuff. He seldom found cause to mention his three tours in Afghanistan, including some covert work that was very off the books. He was a private person by nature, even anti-social. No dependents, no social entanglements, low profile. The perfect fit, like the recruiter had said.

  Now it seemed the protocol was active for the first time in the program’s history. It could only mean something serious. Every second that passed without a recall signal made it more likely that it wasn’t a drill or a screw-up somewhere in the system. A nuke dropped on Washington, maybe, or the discovery of an asteroid headed for Earth, or even an extreme solar flare. It had to be a fast-developing situation, not a foreign invasion or pandemic. Those would take a while to develop into a true crisis. All he’d heard on the news that day was the standard economic doom and gloom, civil unrest in the cities, and the corollary social outrage du jour.

  A surprise attack would do it, like 9/11. The whole point of the call was to pre-empt the news and the public panic that would follow, to allow him time to get up into the mountains and out of sight. Carson’s heart beat faster and faster as he defended against a combo from Rafe and tried to push back his own excitement. He admitted it to himself-- he was excited.

  He channeled that excitement into action, sending a flurry of punches Rafe’s way that sent the shorter man scurrying backwards. Rafe returned to the attack with some Muay Thai, and Carson resorted to a brutal Krav Maga elbow strike against Rafe’s headgear.

  His phone went off again.

  It would keep doing that every ten minutes until he got it up to the cabin, so that the GPS in the phone could confirm that he had reached his secure location. Carson waved Rafe to a halt and they both panted, sweat dripping from their lean bodies. He went to his bag again.

  “Gotta bail,” he told his partner, silencing the phone and tossing it back into his bag. “Sorry, man.”

  “It’s cool, dude. I was winning anyway.” Carson just grinned and shook his head.

  He was almost done packing his small gym bag when the lights went out.

  There were still several other people in the gym, although the evening rush hadn’t yet begun, and they all looked around at each other in the dim light coming from the few windows.

  Rafe was again pounding on the heavy bag near their sparring corner. “Oh, come on!” he said, glaring at the lightbulb that had just winked out overhead. “Good thing we stopped early, huh?” he called after Carson with a goofy grin. “You must have had a premonition.”

  Carson finished with his bag and walked quickly back to his friend. “Listen, Rafe,” he said, keeping his voice low. “I don’t know what this is, but I have a bad feeling about it. I don’t think the power’s coming back on for a while. You need to get home and check on your wife, okay? And make sure you have enough clean water to last a few days.”

  Rafe looked up at him, incredulous. “Dude, you serious?”

  “Yeah,” Carson said. “Yeah, I’m serious. Get home now and make sure you have enough supplies for a week.”

  Rafe scoffed. “It’s just a blink, man, it’ll come back on. Just a blown transformer or something.”

  Carson shook his head. “Maybe, maybe not. I’ve gotta go. Good luck.”

  Chapter 2: Into the Hills

  Outside, the late afternoon sunlight was warm and bright. Far to the west, the sun was dipping toward the Colorado Rockies, and a few fluffy clouds floated in the early autumn sky. Carson’s more immediate surroundings, however, were not as serene: two cars were stalled on the road just outside the gym, and another was stopped at an intersection nearby. But he could hear at least one other car running; a minivan drove slowly past, slowing at an intersection where the lights were out.

  The traffic light outage could be related to the blackout. But the cars?

  Unsure of what was going on but knowing he needed some serious hustle now, Carson jogged through the parking lot toward his Jeep. It was a 2008 Rubicon, and he knew it could easily handle the roads to the cabin, including any urban obstacles that might pop up. But as he climbed in and fumbled with his keys, he felt his heart thumping in his chest harder than ever. If it didn’t start, he was in for a very, very long night.

  He turned the key and… nothing. Slamming his fist on the dash, he tried again, then again. Nothing.

  This couldn’t be happening. He jumped out and lifted the hood. He jiggled the battery, pulled some fuses by the starter relay and plugged them back in, and then reseated a cable going to the neutral switch. Then he jumped back into the driver’s seat and gave it another try.

  Success! The engine roared to life, and Carson thanked his lucky stars, and the makers of the rugged vehicle. Whatever had just happened, perhaps it wasn’t permanent.

  He quickly pulled out of the parking spot, rolled onto the street after checking that no one was coming, and revved the motor to get a surge of speed. The powerful off-road vehicle gave him a shot of confidence, and his hands steadied on the wheel as the wind cooled his sweaty face and neck.

  He passed the stalled cars, now with hoods up and owners half-buried in the engine compartments trying to figure out what had happened. Unable to stop for so much as a word of warning, he tore up the street and then turned onto a major thoroughfare that would take him to the mountains.

  As he steered around stopped cars and passed intersections with more dead lights, he prepared himself mentally. He was probably the one man in Denver that had some idea of what was going down, and he needed to start acting like it.

  There was no time to stop by his place, unfortunately, but he’d been assured that he would find everything he needed in the cabin. Everything but his precious books—Carson never let on just how devoted a history buff and a bookworm he was. It wouldn’t have gained him many fans in the military, and even with friends like Rafe or the cute lady across the street he projected a more straight-forward, Spartan demeanor. But the thought of heading into the mountains without a book to read was nearly killing him.

  His mission now, though, was to get there as quickly as possible, and lie low. He wasn’t to tell anyone where he was going, or to let himself be followed. A detour to his house was a luxury he could
n’t afford, especially after having burned minutes delaying at the gym. He wished he’d thought to keep a book in his gym bag or his vehicle.

  A truck roared through an intersection ahead of him, going east. It was an old Ford, the first moving vehicle he’d seen in several blocks. Carson wondered what the driver’s hurry was to head deeper into the city. If he was smart, the man would turn around and get out of Denver without delay.

  He rolled onward, and his mind turned to the events around him. He tried to piece things together. If this was an EMP, CME, or other grid-down event, it was only a matter of hours before people would begin to panic. They would realize there was no more gasoline, no more transportation, no more pharmacies, no more fast food, no more paychecks. Then they would converge on the stores, desperately spending whatever cash they had on hand, and the looting would begin when the stores desperately tried to close their doors. He needed to be far away by then.

  Carson had mentally run through the details of this scenario before, but it had been a while. Eight years without a single real alert would cause even the most enthusiastic agent to get rusty. Now it started coming back to him.

  He reached into the gym bag on the passenger seat beside him and retrieved his handgun, a Sig P220 9mm in a hard holster. He ejected the mag, checked it, then clicked it back in, racking the slide to chamber the first round. He wedged it, safety on, into the space between the driver’s seat and the middle console.

  A few more turns and he was on the highway, headed west, mountains looming in the distance. Just facing in the right direction was a rush. He was armed, he was mobile, he was in control. And he was active for the first time.

  His foot pressed down a little harder on the accelerator and the Jeep responded, surging forward. But even as he did so, he was forced to slow down again. There were too many stalled cars on the highway, and some had been unable or unwilling to pull to the side. It was becoming an obstacle course, and Carson couldn’t afford an accident that would damage his Jeep and slow his exit. He kept at a steady forty-five mph and swerved gently as necessary to avoid cars and people walking along the side of the road. He ignored the ones that waved for him to stop or held a hitch-hiker’s thumb.