And Sylvan was right there when Alpha walked in and Tank forced herself to give him a stink-eyed glare until he was over in the chow line getting his food.
But fortunately, Sylvan hadn’t given the man more than a passing glance.
Tank reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “We stick together,” she said, hating that she had to keep up a double charade now. “We’ll do this thing and make it all worth it.”
Sylvan wouldn’t meet her gaze. She stared down at her tray and played with her scrambled eggs. “Not worth losing Gatsby and Connell over it,” she softly said. “My parents.”
“Don’t give up hope.”
“You give up hope about your dad yet? I looked up Manila. It’s basically gone.”
Tank swallowed back her fear, the nasty, hard ball of cold ice wanting to run back up her throat, along with her breakfast. “My dad’s a tricky fuck.”
“I hacked into my parents’ cell phone accounts last night,” she said. “While you were at the meeting. Through the online interface.” Now Sylvan’s gaze lifted, red-rimmed, somber. “They haven’t checked their voice mails since the day of Barstow. They had lots of new messages on there, both accounts full.”
Of course Tank had known they were full, because two weeks ago Gatsby had caught Sylvan trying to call them on a burner and ordered her to stop doing it. Sylvan had confided to them then that their voice mail accounts were at the limit.
Tank didn’t want her to lose hope. “You still don’t—”
“The family trackers on the accounts last pinged both their phones in Barstow, Tank.” She put down her fork and stared at her tray. “On the night of. I’m not as stupid as I look. I didn’t want to access their accounts before. I was afraid to for this very reason. And if I hack into their bank accounts, I’m going to find no activity since then, either. Nothing. Because they were vaporized and I’m still alive and what the hell am I supposed to do with the rest of my life?”
Tank leaned in. “We keep living,” she gently said. “Because to give up is an insult to those who died. To keep living is the biggest fuck-you we can give to North Korea, to Reverend Silo, to all the jackasses who contributed to this mess in the first place. We keep living, and we permanently fuck the shit up of everyone we can who is still contributing to this mess. That’s what we do.”
Next to Sylvan sat Paxton. He hesitantly draped an arm around Sylvan’s shoulders. He was a year younger than Sylvan, but he was definitely years ahead of her in what little common sense the others had in the group.
“You’ve got us,” he said. “I’m here. I know my parents are dead. I know they died in Barstow because they left me a voice mail asking me to try to get there to meet up with them.”
Sylvan leaned her head against his shoulder and Tank breathed a sigh of relief. She’d caught Paxton making eyes at Sylvan before, but with Sylvan so eager to chase after Gatsby—who hadn’t had an ounce of interest in her—she’d never seen what was right there in front of her.
Good.
Maybe the two kids would hit it off and solve two problems at once for her. She could back off giving Alpha stink-eye, and she wouldn’t have to babysit Sylvan.
“Let’s eat and then we can get to work,” Tank told them. “We’ve got a lot to do.”
* * * *
Rev. Hannibal Silo of the Church of the Rising Sunset stood in his bathroom Wednesday morning and stared at himself in the mirror. He was supposed to be down at the dining hall for breakfast in an hour, before he gave a televised sermon.
Truth be told, he didn’t feel like it.
He certainly didn’t look like it, either.
He’d emptied most of a bottle of bourbon by himself the night before and was damn sure feeling it this morning.
At least I’ll look like shit.
He was firmly in Jerald’s power at this point and he knew it. Fucking up with the CDC operation had been the final straw. Now, hungover and unshaven, as he stared at himself in the mirror he didn’t see the virile leader of a global empire that he’d seen just months ago.
He saw an aging old man.
A man he didn’t even know anymore.
The ultimate irony was that he couldn’t even pray to god for help, because as he’d sat there drinking his liver into a coma the night before, he finally realized and admitted to himself that he didn’t even believe in a god.
Sure he’d idly thought that before, because what god would really let someone like him be in control of millions of people? But he’d never…absorbed it before.
Not really.
As he stared into the mirror, he realized he was finally seeing the truth staring back at him. None of the girls he’d selected to be his brides would have wanted him. Not really. They wouldn’t have been willing.
And Mary. Maybe she saw the truth about him all along. Hell, he thought he’d been smarter than her and had her under control, and she’d made a laughingstock of him. Posted videos, made recordings—undid with a few actions months of work.
His doorbell rang, finally forcing him out of his reverie. Grabbing a bathrobe, he went to answer the door and found Jerald standing there, fully dressed and put together and looking far more powerful than he’d ever felt, even at his best.
“What the—” He shoved Hannibal back inside, slamming the door shut and locking it behind him. “Holy fuck, what the hell’s wrong with you? You look like shit.”
“Good. I’d hate to feel this horrible and not look it.”
Jerald waved a hand in front of his face. “You’re fucking hungover? Seriously? Dammit.” He grabbed Hannibal by the shoulders, spun him around, and shoved him down the hall and toward the master bathroom. “We have to be downstairs in the dining hall. You have to be on TV. We’re supposed to be going over our notes for this morning right now. We don’t have time for this bullshit!”
“What difference does it make?” he asked as Jerald got him into the master bathroom. “In all truth?”
Jerald turned him around and slapped him, hard, rocking his head back. “You listen to me, you idiotic fuck. You can’t pull the pity-poor-me act now and bail. I’ll have your ass in jail by the end of the day if you want to play that game.” He pointed at the shower. “You get your fucking ass in there, clean up, shave, and for god’s sake, brush your teeth and gargle. I’ll go get your suit ready.”
Hannibal didn’t move.
“Was I speaking in tongues? Go!”
He finally did as Jerald headed back into the bedroom.
As he reached into the shower to turn it on, he sighed.
It’s come to this, then. Not only has Mary excelled and escaped me, but Jerald is now truly in charge.
He idly thought about trying to call one of his contacts to take Jerald out, but then thought better of it.
With his current string of luck, the man would already be in Jerald’s pocket, let Jerald know what was going on, and Hannibal would still be in jail.
Or dead.
As he waited for the water to warm, he finally accepted that no, he didn’t want to die.
Especially since he wasn’t convinced there was anything better later on.
Or, perhaps, if there was, maybe he wouldn’t be heading up after all.
Maybe he’d be heading down to a fate far worse than this set-back.
He climbed into the shower to start getting ready.
Chapter Eleven
As the calendar changed from November to December, the secret base was able to spread the hacker team out into different quarters, a section designed for enlisted men, sharing common facilities but at least everyone had their own private bunk area.
Meanwhile, the buffed-up research team, working with the Canadians, strove to perfect a production-ready vaccine. All their testing came back affirmative, and every successive sample strain of Kite they managed to get hold of was also knocked out by the vaccine.
Even researchers in different labs around the world had agreed that what they were doing was workin
g and were trying to get production quantities produced and distributed in their areas despite the final approval not yet being given.
It was, at least, the start of the tide turning in the world’s favor.
Tank led a stressful double life that made anything she’d been through before that point almost pale in comparison. She would sometimes have to schedule her rendezvous with Alpha and Papa for different times of the day, using all sorts of excuses from sit rep meetings to just going off somewhere for a nap by herself.
But she had fully vested the young hackers in their goal. Between the Drunk Monkeys showing them all the evidence they had on Rev. Silo and Barstow, and letting them go down to the lab to talk in person and unescorted to the research team and hear their stories, she’d fully won them all over to the cause.
She’d even facilitated a video call between Arliss and the group, the kids able to put a face and voice to the actions and plan. A grandfatherly looking guy who could have been a relative to any of them.
Tank hoped the students wouldn’t hate her too much when the truth finally came out.
In what little alone time she had, she studied the four faces of the men she’d killed in KC, men who’d only been following orders and doing their job.
Men she’d had to kill and still hated herself over.
Connell and Gatsby’s urns, which were actually plain wooden boxes, sat on a shelf in her room, over her bunk. She didn’t know when or what she’d do with them, and hadn’t told the others about them, either.
This was her responsibility.
So far, even Bubba hadn’t been able to track down living relatives of the men. Not close ones, at least. It was very likely that Gatsby’s parents had died either in LA or Barstow. Connell’s were still MIA, Bubba unable to confirm anything about their fate.
The good note was that Q and Mama had both been reunited with their loved ones. The two SOTIF teams who’d been guarding the civvies had brought them to the base just last week, now that it was apparent that they had found a permanent safe haven. Q looked years younger now when she saw him and his family in the dining area, as did Mama.
Although it looked like Mama and Waldo had also finally become a couple, sharing a private quarters, with her son bunked right next door to them.
Sylvan and Paxton had segued into a romantic item and had taken up sharing a bunk behind closed doors.
The hacker team, working with Bubba pretending to be Ax, was quickly amassing the full picture of what had happened in LA and Barstow, as well as the facts behind the earlier Kite outbreak in New York.
All of that was great, but as Christmas drew near, it still didn’t ease Tank’s conscience about what had happened in Kansas City, or the fact that her father was still unaccounted for. She’d been able to talk to her mom once a couple of months earlier on a crappy sat-com cell connection, for a few minutes, but that was all. She hadn’t been able to get in touch with her again that way, although Bubba had assured Tank the base was still secure and safe.
Even Tank’s time in bed with her men was beginning to lose the ability to take her out of her head for more than a few minutes here and there. Too much unfinished business for her to deal with.
Too much guilt.
Here she was, snug and safe in a Canadian base, and people were dead, families had no real answers, her father was missing.
Lots of fathers and mothers were missing.
On Christmas Eve, she snuck away to a remote storeroom with her men for a private celebration. As she lay there snuggled between them, she voiced it.
“What happens after?”
“What do you mean?” Papa asked.
“After the vaccines, after Silo. What then?”
Alpha nuzzled the side of her neck. “What do you want to do, sugar? That’s the question.”
“I want to find my dad.”
Both men froze.
Before either of them could protest, she rephrased it. “I’m going to go find my dad,” she said. “At the very least, we have to get an exfil team to Manila to see if anyone’s still alive.”
They’d lost communications with Manila months earlier, not long after El Segundo fell, and hadn’t been able to restore it.
If there was anyone there to restore communications with.
Unfortunately, with so much of that part of the globe now infested with Kite, no one had launched a rescue mission there. Naval resources had been devoted to keeping boats full of Kite refugees from landing in Hawaii or on the US mainland, and providing support to the UK. Any air missions to Manila would need refueling support, and that had been, once again, redirected to efforts keeping their interests elsewhere protected in the air.
Alpha started to protest, but Papa reached over and touched his shoulder, silencing him. “Nothing can be done until the vaccine starts to ship. We are under orders to stay here and guard the team.”
“I know that.”
“Shipping a production vaccine is probably a month away, or longer.”
“I know.”
The silence descended upon them, thick and heavy.
“I killed four guys who were only doing their job and following orders,” she said. “I got two kids killed in the process, kids who were my responsibility. The least I can do is try to rescue anyone who might still be in Manila.”
“That’s not your job, sugar,” Alpha gently said.
“Maybe not, but it’s my burden, and I don’t take that lightly. I failed in my command role. No one gets left behind.”
He nuzzled her temple, placing a tender kiss there. “Okay, then. I guess there’s a trip to Manila in our future.”
Papa let out a heavy sigh as he laced fingers with her. “Guess so.”
“You don’t have to go.”
“Oh, you’re wrong, sugar,” Alpha said. “Try to stop us from coming. You need the best with you. We happen to be the best of the best.”
“Thank you.” She snuggled between them again, her only wish this year for Christmas being that they all found some peace, and soon.
* * * *
Jerald studied Hannibal’s back as the man gave his Christmas Eve sermon. In advance, Jerald had set up tomorrow’s schedule to be a light one, ending early in the day.
Hannibal’s drinking was getting worse now. Jerald wasn’t even sure where the hell Hannibal was getting the booze. He wasn’t going to try very hard to track down the staffer aiding and abetting the man, either.
Well, that makes my job easier in one way.
An accidental overdose while mixing alcohol and drugs during the holiday season was so common it verged on utter cliché.
Jerald had given up on trying to find Mary before he offed Hannibal. At the rate the man was starting to implode, it would be better to get him out of the way fast before he did something epically stupid and took the church—or Jerald—down with him. Jerald had already lined up another figurehead for the church, an aspiring young woman, married to a textbook-handsome man, with two perfect-looking children, a degree from seminary school, and who was in the Washington State compound and helping run things there.
She’d be perfect. He’d contact her as soon as Hannibal was in the ground, get her and her family moved to St. Louis and in the hot-seat.
If Mary Silo showed back up, he’d take care of her. Maybe she’d be willing to work with him with Hannibal out of the way. If not?
Well, he’d have no regrets about taking her out, too.
He hadn’t yet settled on whether or not to kill Hannibal tomorrow night or on New Year’s Eve. When he’d told Hannibal last week about the deaths of Tom Davis and Bill Parnassus, the man had completely folded like a wet paper bag.
Jerald couldn’t have kept Bill’s death from Hannibal if he’d wanted to, since his wife, Mary Parnassus, held such a visible post there at the compound.
He’d used that opportunity to reveal, oh yeah, by the way, our only remaining CIA contact also bit the dust. Jerald wasn’t sure if the deaths truly were accidentally
coincidental or not, but the fact that they occurred so closely together, and were two more contacts eliminated, meant Jerald didn’t want to take any chances and risk pissing Arliss off even more.
Jerald had braced himself, but the expected temper tantrum hadn’t come, surprisingly enough.
Hannibal had simply slumped onto the sofa and stared at the dark TV as if it held the most interesting show ever.
Much in the way Mary used to stare at the mindless TV shows Hannibal allowed her to watch.
Spooky. Damned spooky.
Now, Jerald found himself having to treat Hannibal like a child. Had to show up early at Hannibal’s quarters every morning to force the man into the shower, make sure he shaved, got him dressed, and then shadow him every waking minute of the day that he was among people.
It played into how he’d portrayed Silo as a heartbroken man, but this was ridiculous. He wasn’t a babysitter.
Thank god Hannibal would never become President. Jerald couldn’t imagine what would have happened in that case if mere setbacks like this had utterly broken the guy’s spirit.
Maybe it should be New Year’s.
If he killed Hannibal tonight, it would mean his death would also be intrinsically tied to what was their church’s biggest celebration day of the year. New Year’s would be better.
Now that he’d made the decision, Jerald felt a measure of peace settling in. It’d give him a week to start dropping more comments here and there to key staff. Things like, “I’m going to have to make Hannibal see his doctor next week. I’m truly worried about his health.” Tidbits that would clue staffers in, make them take closer notice of the man themselves.
Set up the tragic demise of the legend.
Oh, Hannibal. It’s so much better than you deserve.
Jerald just hoped, once Hannibal was out of the way, that he would fall off Arliss’ radar as he moved the church toward truly churchy kinds of goals. Arliss had proven a far more worthy opponent than he ever could have dreamed of.
And he damn sure didn’t want to meet with an “accident” of any kind.
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