All At Stake - A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Thriller (Lights Out in Vegas Book 1) Read online

  All At Stake

  Sean Patten

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Copyright 2019 by Sean Patten

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part by any means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the explicit written permission of the author.

  All characters depicted in this fictional work are consenting adults, of at least eighteen years of age. Any resemblance to persons living or deceased, particular businesses, events, or exact locations are entirely coincidental.

  Prologue

  Warm wind carried in on a gentle breeze.

  That’s it.

  That’s the trigger.

  Doesn’t take any more than that to get me to remember.

  The fresh Hawaiian air moved through the restaurant, the ever-present scent of sea salt a constant reminder of where I was. The early afternoon sun came in on warm beams. The texture of the booth was cool and smooth.

  The details were burned into my mind like a brand.

  Kelly flicked her eyes up at me, her blue as dramatic as the glittering ocean just beyond the restaurant patio. Her brow was furrowed slightly, as if concerned.

  “Something wrong?” she asked.

  I’d been off in my own world, thinking about one thing or another. Probably some minor detail from an in-progress project at work.

  “No,” I said, shifting in my seat, the rubber of the booth squeaking under my weight. “Why?”

  “You had that look on your face,” she said. “The one where I can tell you’re a million miles away.”

  I reached across the table and took Kelly’s hand in mine. Her skin was soft and warm. I rubbed the smooth stone of her wedding ring with the tip of my thumb.

  “Not a million miles away,” I said. “I’m right here.”

  Kelly narrowed her eyes and cocked her head to the side, a small, knowing smile curling her lips.

  “I don’t believe that for a second,” she said. “You were off in space again, I could tell.”

  No sense in arguing with her on that score. Not only had we been married for long enough for her to be able to read me like a dime-store paperback, Kelly had one of those sharp, analytical minds, one where she could look right into your eyes and know what you were thinking. Or trying to hide.

  “Thinking about stuff back home,” I said, trying to offer some kind of explanation.

  Kelly slipped her hand free from mine and raised her finger, wagging it playfully.

  “No, no,” she said. “None of that. The whole point of this trip is to get you living in the here and now, bud.”

  She wasn’t being entirely accurate. The whole point of our trip was to do some repair work on a marriage that had been on the rocks. But I let that slide.

  I allowed myself a small smile.

  “Sorry, babe,” I said. “Going to take more than a week in paradise to change those habits.”

  She took her finger from the air and brought it to her small, pert chin, tapping it softly on her fair skin.

  “Hmm,” she said.

  Then her eyes lit up, the blues shining for a brief moment like searchlights. Kelly glanced over and laid eyes on the small stack on napkins, their corners decorated with the palm tree logo of the restaurant. She grabbed a few and placed them in front of her before fishing a pen out of her purse.

  “What on earth are you doing?” I asked, my eyes on her hands.

  “Drastic times call for drastic measures, as they say,” she said.

  “And what sort of ‘drastic measures’ might these be?”

  “I’m calling the law down on you,” she said.

  “The law?”

  A playfully scheming expression formed on my wife’s face.

  “That’s right,” she said, preparing to write down something on one of the napkins. “I’m calling in the fun police.”

  I couldn’t help but let out a dry laugh.

  “The what now?”

  “The fun police,” she said. “A powerful, global organization charged with making sure the tensest of us cut loose and have a good time.”

  “I didn’t know you were a member of any international extra-legal agencies,” I said.

  She scrawled something on the napkin, her eyes meeting mine for a brief moment as she wrote.

  “You know me,” she said. “I’m a woman of secrets.”

  She finished jotting something down before placing the pen on the white expanse of the table and handing the napkin over. I regarded her skeptically for a moment before taking the note and looking it over.

  “‘Being up in your own head in a fun zone’,” I read aloud. “First warning.”

  “Now,” Kelly said, sitting back in her seat, a grave, professional expression taking hold of her gorgeous features. “We don’t mess around in the fun police. You get one warning—the next ticket’s going to be for real, and will carry some serious penalties.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “Such as?” I asked.

  “Trust me,” she said. “You don’t even want to know. Make no mistake: just because we’re the fun police it doesn’t mean that the penalties are anything to laugh at.”

  I glanced down at the note one last time before setting it on the table.

  “That right?” I asked. “I’m imagining something like the Spanish Inquisition but being carried out by clowns.”

  “See?” she said. “Clowns are pretty scary.”

  I laughed again. Silence fell over us, the gentle din of the ocean-side café busy with its lunch rush swirling around us.

  “You know just how to put the fear of God into me, kiddo,” I said.

  Kelly positioned her hand under her chin and pointed up to her face.

  “Don’t let these innocent looks fool you,” she said. “I really know how to put the screws to someone when I need to.”

  “Consider me scared,” I said.

  “Good,” she said. “But I don’t want you to spend the entire vacation quaking in those boots of yours.” She gave my foot a gentle kick under the table. “I’d rather you have some fun.”

  I sat back, spanning my arms over the back of the booth.

  “I’m doing my best,” I said. “But you remember what Dr. Walsh said. Ba—”

  “Baby steps,” Kelly finished, cutting off the reference to our marriage counselor. “I know, I know.”

  “It’s a big thing for me to even be out here in the middle of nowhere,” I said.

  She chuckled.

  “You make it sound like I dragged you out into the desert. You’re in freaking Hawaii!”

  “You ever looked at Hawaii on a map?” I asked. “It’s right smack-dab in the center of the biggest ocean on the plan
et. Pretty ‘middle of nowhere’ to me.”

  “Fine, fine,” she said. “But it’s also paradise.”

  She gestured towards the tall, open windows of the restaurant.

  “Look at that. Sparkling waters, warm sands, trees lolling in the warm breeze. Doesn’t get much more ‘paradise’ than this.”

  I reached across the table once again and took her hand.

  “Babe,” I said. “Anywhere’s paradise as long as you’re there.”

  Her eyes met mine for a few beats of silence.

  “Bet you think you’re being romantic as hell with that line,” she said, another smirk curving her full, red lips.

  “You telling me I’m not?”

  “Maybe it would be if you didn’t already use it when you were trying to talk me out of planning this little excursion of ours.”

  I scanned my memory, trying to pinpoint the moment.

  “Damn,” I said. “I must be running out of material.”

  “That’s right,” she said. “No more excuses. And now, with the watchful eye of the fun police looking over your shoulder you’ll have no choice but to have a good time.”

  “I suppose I’ll have to do my best,” I said.

  Kelly reached over the table and placed her hand on my forehead, holding it there for a moment as if taking my temperature. I closed my eyes and savored it. Despite the trouble we’d been having, her touch was something I never got tired of. Then she ran her hand through my hair, scratching the back of my neck.

  “I know you will,” she said. “Because now that I’ve revealed my secret identity to you, I should also let you know that I’m making you having a good time a special project of mine.”

  “Yeah?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “First, I let you sleep in this morning. Now, when’s the last time you let yourself get up without an alarm clock going off at five thirty a.m. sharp?”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but couldn’t find the words.

  “No idea,” I said.

  “And wasn’t it so, so much nicer waking up a little later, your face all warm with the sun?”

  “A pretty lady at my side…”

  “That too,” she said with a grin.

  “I suppose you’re right,” I said. “Can’t remember the last time I felt this…awake.”

  “Mhmm,” she said. “And your loving wife was nice enough to get you breakfast in bed, followed by a relaxing walk down the shore.”

  “Okay,” I admitted. “So far, it’s been pretty nice.”

  “And now you’ve got a big, greasy burger on the way, a cold beer in front of you…”

  My stomach growled in anticipation.

  “And then after this?” I asked.

  “I was thinking a little sunning on the beach. I can work on my tan, and you can do a little reading.” Her finger shot up again. “But only fun books,” she said. “If I catch you reading anything for work that’s another ticket.”

  I laughed.

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “Fair enough. I won’t study any schematics beachside.”

  “Perfect,” Kelly said. “Then we can do a little shopping, then maybe some dancing.”

  “You know I hate dancing,” I said.

  “You don’t hate it,” she said. “You’re just bad at it.”

  “Ouch,” I said, my hand shooting to my heart. “I’m wounded.”

  She laughed, that bright, chiming laugh that I couldn’t get enough of.

  “The truth hurts, I know,” she said. “But I’m thinking that if you’ll be cool enough for a dance or two then we can spend the rest of the night having some drinks and people-watching.”

  “And then?”

  Her eyes narrowed into icy, seductive slivers.

  “Then we go back to the hotel and…see where the night takes us.”

  This was a surprise. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d done…anything like that.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’m sold.”

  She grinned.

  “I figured that’d do it,” she said. “And that’s just day one. We’ve got a whole week ahead of us, just you and me.”

  I let out a snort, a smile spreading on my lips as though out of my control.

  “Maybe this won’t be so bad after all,” I said.

  “Good attitude,” Kelly said. “Keep it up and the fun police won’t have to put you in cuffs.”

  Another sly grin.

  “Okay” came a perky voice, snapping us both out of our moment.

  I glanced up to see the waitress, a pretty, tanned blonde with two plates in her hands.

  “We’ve got a bacon double cheeseburger with extra mayonnaise, and a chicken Caesar salad, hold the croutons.”

  “Burger’s for the big man,” said Kelly.

  The waitress set down the plates and was off.

  “Damn,” I said, my eyes fixed on the tall, juicy burger. “This is just what I was in the mood for.”

  “Wait!” Kelly exclaimed.

  “Wait for what?”

  She quickly took her glass of white wine and raised it into the air.

  “A cheers,” she said.

  Her eyes shot to my beer. I grabbed it by the handle and raised it as she’d done with hers.

  “A cheers, huh?” I asked.

  “That’s right,” she said. “To the best week of your life. Of our lives.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” I said.

  I raised the glass of golden beer to my lips, close enough to feel the tingle of the bubbles against my nose.

  But before I took a sip, I froze in my seat, my eyes fixed ahead.

  “Babe?” asked Kelly. “You okay over there?”

  I didn’t respond. Instead, my attention was on two men who’d just entered the restaurant. They were dressed head-to-toe in black—black boots, black jeans, black T-shirts, black caps, and black sunglasses so dark you couldn’t make out their eyes.

  The stood at the front of the place, each of them scanning the scene.

  Call it paranoia, call it what you will, but I knew right away that something was up. Something bad.

  “Earth to Justin,” said Kelly, as she waved her slim fingers in front of my face. “You’re doing it again. You’re—”

  “Babe,” I said, my gaze still fixed on the men. “Not another word.”

  “What?” she asked. “What the hell are you—”

  I raised my palm, cutting her off mid-sentence. The hostess approached the men, but before she could say a word, one of the men reached into his waistband under his shirt and withdrew something silver, the metal glinting in the sunlight.

  “Kelly,” I said firmly. “Get down right now. Under the table.”

  “But—”

  Kelly didn’t have time to protest. The man swiped his gun across the face of the hostess before pointing it at the ceiling and firing three shots in quick succession.

  “This is a fucking robbery!” he yelled, his voice heavy with menace. “Everybody put your hands where I can see them!”

  Screams shot out from the patrons. The second man turned towards me, then Kelly, a grim slit of a smile on his lips.

  “Hostage,” he shouted. “Right there!”

  I didn’t have time to react. The man rushed over to our booth and grabbed Kelly by the arm, his gun pointed in her direction.

  She screamed as he pulled her out of her seat, a sound that would echo in my mind for as long as I lived, an expression of pure terror written into her face.

  Chapter 1

  May 8 2020: 17:00 Pacific Time

  A jolt of turbulence yanked me back into the waking world. I glanced around the cramped, dim confines of the plane interior, my heart still racing from the bad dream.

  I gripped hard onto the armrests, my nails digging into the soft strip of fabric over the metal. A soft chime sounded through the plane as the lights went brighter.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” came the crisp, calm voice of the pilot. “We’re experiencing a
touch of turbulence on our descent into Las Vegas. Shouldn’t last more than a few more moments. In the meantime, please stay in your seats and refrain from moving about the cabin.”

  The plane lurched violently a few more times before the turbulence faded. I sat still, my heart thudding in my chest as I stared at the back of the seat in front of me.

  “Jesus Christ,” said the man to my right, a skinny, older guy with a horseshoe of silver hair on his otherwise bald head.

  He glanced over to me, twin spots of red forming on his wrinkled cheeks.

  “Sorry for the language,” he said. “Been flying for damn near sixty years and I never get used to that.”

  I said nothing, still trying to calm myself with deep breaths.

  “Looks like it’s the same story for you,” he said. “You okay over there?”

  “Yeah,” I said, my heart steadily slowing down. “Not much of a flier is all.”

  “I can tell,” he said. “And that turbulence—makes you feel like some giant’s grabbed hold of the plane and is giving it a good shake before tearing it in two.”

  I chuckled in spite of myself.

  “Very colorful,” I said.

  He flashed me a smile of faded white teeth.

  “English professor,” he said. “You read enough short fiction by students and phrases like that just start sneaking in.”

  His eyes flicked over me, giving me an up-and-down appraisal.

  “What about you?” he asked.

  Then he closed his eyes.

  “Wait,” he said. “Let me guess, military?”

  His guess stung, but I didn’t share why.

  “Nope,” I said. “Engineer. Mechanical, to be exact.”

  “That right?” he asked, his bushy eyebrows raising.

  “You sound surprised,” I said.

  I felt a tension grow within me. I’d never really been much of a “chatting with strangers” type, and between that and the turbulence, I was feeling as though I’d rather be anywhere but where I was at that moment, despite how friendly the man was being.

  “I am, a little,” he said. “Broad-shouldered young man like yourself doesn’t look like what I’d imagine when I picture an engineer.”

  “Young man?” I repeated with a wry smile. “Don’t know if I’d call myself that.”