“What sort of agreement?”
“Well you know I’m not interested in expansion, but I would be willing to station a contingent of men in Manchester on a semi-permanent basis. At least until this, all blows over. It’s in both our interests to have a strong ally close by.”
“I think we’d be open to that. We’d need to put it to the council of course. How many men are we talking?”
“Ten percent of my force. Fifty men. They can blockade the bridges and roads from the south and patrol anywhere you think you need.”
“Wow. You have my vote,” Luke said to Isaac. “Pretty sure there won’t be a problem getting a unanimous vote. Everybody was pretty shaken up.”
“Yeah.”
“All right. That’s settled then. I’ll begin the preparations; you just get a message to me when you have cleared it with your council, and we’ll get to it. I’ll see you out.”
“Yes, sir.”
They followed Randal out.
“Bye Luke,” said Becky, with a smile.
“Bye,” he responded as nonchalantly as he could, knowing full well the heat in his cheeks was a giveaway.
“That Becky girl seems nice,” said Isaac as they passed through the final checkpoint and began following the road back to Manchester.
“Are you fishing dude?”
“Are the fish biting?”
Luke folded his hands over his chest.
“Nope.”
“To tell the truth, I think she likes you.”
“Dude! Just drive.”
The truth was, he liked Becky, and it was pretty obvious the feeling was reciprocated. He wondered if she knew he was a dad and if that would make a difference to her feelings. Anyway, it just seemed way too soon to be thinking about another woman.
***
On the morning of the second day after the errant shot by Juliano, Eshman waited in General Orton’s outer office. The drive back to Albany had taken nearly 9 hours, and they’d stayed for the night there before heading onto Rochester at dawn.
He imagined that in the old days it would have been possible to travel between Manchester and Rochester in about 6 hours. While the roads in New York State had been pretty much cleared by Riley’s people, they’d had to stop frequently on the country roads of New Hampshire and Vermont to move obstructions like fallen trees and dead vehicles.
The intercom on the receptionist’s desk buzzed.
“Send him in.”.
“Yes sir,” said his receptionist, a big guy who no doubt had two roles to play for his boss. He looked across to Eshman. “You can go in.”
“Morning Eshman,” said William Orton. Despite the early hour, he looked fresh, and his gaze was sharp.
“Morning sir.”
“Sit down, and spill.”
“Yes, sir.”
Eshman pulled a notepad from his pocket and proceeded to tell his general everything they’d learned, day by day, in the month they’d been out. Orton made notes, asking a pertinent question here and there.
He didn’t show surprise at any of the facts and figures, but Eshman knew he must have been, at the very least, a little shocked. In fact, the only time he showed any real emotion was when Eshman got up to the final day in his notes and explained what had happened on the roof.
“What were my orders?” he said in a low voice.
Eshman would have preferred shouting.
“Not to engage sir.”
“And yet..?”
“Look, sir; the kid is young. Maybe it was my fault for putting him on the roof.”
“You’re right; it is your fault.” He leaned over the intercom and stabbed the button with his finger. “Goulding have the MP’s come and escort Mr. Eshman to the square. Turn out the barracks; there’s to be a whipping in thirty minutes.”
Eshman’s face went white.
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh, and make sure that Eshman’s team is front and center.” He sat back and looked at Eshman. “Do you have something to say?”
Eshman didn’t want to be whipped. It wasn’t only about the pain. It was more the humiliation, but he knew if he argued it would probably only make matters worse.
“No, sir.”
“I didn’t think so.”
Exactly thirty minutes later, Eshman, stripped to the waist, was tied to a post in front of the Brownhouse. The post was on a rude concrete stage that had been constructed for just this purpose, making examples of people who had done the wrong thing. Usually, it was floggings, but just occasionally an execution for the worst crimes.
The entire barracks had gathered around, and civilians had also begun assembling as news of the flogging spread. Eshman eyed his team noting that they all gave him nods of support. All bar Juliano, who stared at his feet. He caught movement in his peripheral vision and raised his head towards the roof of the Brownhouse. On the roof, a small group of people was watching. Eshman spotted the tall figure of the president watching silently amongst the other watchers who appeared to be talking animatedly.
The crowd at the foot of the stage parted to allow a big, bald guy carrying a bullwhip through. He wore a black tank top, with khaki pants tucked into his boots.
The crowd started to chant.
“Bull, Bull, Bull.”
The name was apt. General Orton’s multipurpose strong man was tall with massive shoulders and a neck as wide as his big head. He was feared and adored in equal parts by the public and hated by the soldiers for his ruthlessness and favored position. It was a silent hatred though. No one dared voice their opinion to the general, and most definitely not to Bull. He had snapped the neck of the last soldier too drunk and stupid to know better.
Bull was followed onto the stage by William Orton, looking resplendent in his black uniform. Eshman briefly wondered if he’d found it in a costume shop. It looked a little like a cross between the uniform of a Death Star commander and a German SS uniform.
Orton turned on the stage and raised his hands. His blonde hair blew in the wind as the crowd slowly hushed.
“Friends, soldiers of New America,” he called in a loud voice. “We are gathered to see punishment. A punishment earned for disobeying a direct order. Five lashes of Bull’s whip. Let this be a lesson to all.”
For once, Eshman wished that Orton had had a longer speech prepared. Then again maybe not. Perhaps the anticipation was worse than the actual punishment.
Orton stepped back and Bull, the same man who had recently tortured the captured soldier from Concord, theatrically walked to the back of the stage and held his hands wide allowing the length of the whip to fall and slap the concrete.
The chant went up again.
“Bull, Bull, Bull.”
Eshman allowed himself to flop against the pole and looked down into the first row. Juliano met his gaze this time, and Eshman thought he saw at least two emotions. Guilt and relief.
Bull held up his left hand and jabbed a meaty finger into the sky as he began to heft the handle of the whip in his right hand.
“ONE!” called the crowd.
Crack!
The pain was excruciating. Eshman felt like someone had drawn a line of gasoline across his shoulder blades and lit it with a match.
“TWO!”
Crack!
“THREE!”
Crack!
He blacked out, but the reprieve was short-lived. He came to, slumped against the pole, unable to straighten his legs.
“FIVE!”
Crack!
The fifth stroke was like a punch, his whole back was aflame with agony, and he only felt the physical impact, the burning didn’t get any worse. Eshman gave up trying to stand and slid down the pole as far as the ropes around his wrist would allow.
The crowd roared its approval.
“Bull, Bull, Bull!”
Orton stepped up the edge of the stage again and held up his hands.
“The punishment has been served,” he said, gesturing to the bleeding slumped form of Eshman.
“Let this be a lesson, some mistakes will be tolerated, and discipline meted out. Other mistakes? Well, other mistakes will not be tolerated.”
With that, he stepped up to the edge of the stage and produced the small handgun he’d been holding behind his back.
Now there were screams from the crowd as they shrunk back in horror. Eshman barely registered surprise though, he was in a state of shock and didn’t react when Orton shot Bruno Juliano between the eyes. He passed out again as Juliano fell at the feet of his team, a look of surprise on his face.
12
An hour later Orton was in President Riley’s office sharing the intel Eshman’s team had gathered from their mission into New Hampshire.
“So, it’s confirmed then,” said Riley. “Two cities, a combined population of around a thousand and an army of at least five hundred. It doesn’t sound like they’ll have a choice but to capitulate given we outnumber them by at least three times. I think it’s time we send an envoy.”
“For that reason, I think we should take them by surprise,” said Orton. “If we send an envoy we give them a warning and a chance to gather themselves to defend. This is former military we’re talking about; I don’t think their leaders will surrender.”
“Yes, we outnumber them,” said Riley. “But remember, we’ll be on their turf, and they have battle-hardened soldiers. Real soldiers. US army soldiers, from before the attack. They’ll be well armed and disciplined, not like the scrappy gangs of toothless kids we’ve been knocking over.”
“It will be a challenge Mr. President, but I think we must take decisive action.”
Riley waved his hand.
“Go on, what do you suggest then?”
“No attack, not at first anyway. We should roll our entire army up on their doorstep, then parley with them. Give them the same opportunity you give everyone else we conquer.” He stood up and leaned over the map of the Eastern United States on the table between them. He ran his finger from Rochester directly east across the map until it stopped just to the west of Concord. “I think we should send three thousand men to this point, with me in command. Meanwhile, we send two hundred and fifty men led by Cyclops to secure Manchester. We make both cities the offer. Submit and become the most eastern outpost of New America or die. Faced with our larger forces, this colonel should see sense.”
“Go on,” said Riley, his face thoughtful.
“We’ll send the contingent of two hundred and fifty from Albany, they can head south and then curl north back up to Manchester. Eshman’s team had to return before they had hard numbers, but based on what they saw, he didn’t think there could be any more than five hundred souls there, and at least half would be women and children.
“That would leave roughly three hundred soldiers to cover a worst-case scenario to protect our border.”
Riley steepled his fingers and stared into the distance. Orton waited patiently, aware of his leader’s penchant for the theatrical. The seconds stretched into a minute, and finally, Orton cleared his throat.
Riley put his hands flat on the table and looked at Orton with an intensity rare even for him.
“This is what we’ll do. I will lead the army, all three tanks and one hundred cavalrymen east to Concord. You’ll be by my side. We’ll send the entire Albany division of five hundred to Manchester. If they decide to fight, Manchester will be crushed quickly as we attack Concord with our main force. Then Cyclops and his men can come up on Concord from behind to mop things up. It will be over in less than a day if it comes to a fight.”
William held his tongue. He wanted to argue that it was dangerous to show their full hand, but the glint in Riley’s eyes was a dangerous one. Aidan Riley saw his doubt.
“Have I ever told you what happened to me when were evacuated from the Whitehouse Will?”
“Only that you managed to escape the Chinese when they killed the team assigned to protect you and your mother.”
“Yes. I ran alone through the woods because my secret serviceman was injured. He sacrificed himself to lead them away from me. I thought it had worked. It hadn’t. Not long after, a lone Chinese soldier had stumbled upon me. It was comical really; we were both as surprised as each other when it happened. Anyway, his surprise wore off, and he was quicker than me. He ordered me to put up my hands.
“Then his head exploded. He was blasted by a man hiding out in an ambush with his two sons. They were preppers, armed to the teeth and fighting for their country guerilla style. They killed the rest of the Chinese pursuing me in an ambush. Lucky me, right?”
“Sure,” said Orton, unsure where this conversation was heading, only knowing it was making him uncomfortable.
“Wrong. You see the old man got killed as he was about to plug the leader of the Chinese. The boys took me. I’d been saved from the Chinese, but now was held captive by two sons mourning their father and blaming me for his death. When they found out who I was, it got worse, not better.”
“Sorry…”
“Nothing for you to be sorry about Will. They kept me in their basement for over a year. They fed me every few days and would bring down kids they’d met and recruited to show me off as a sign of their power. They pretty much had a house full of survivors and had trained them into quite a little force by the end of that twelve months. I don’t need to tell you some of the things they did to me down there; you would probably guess what two angry out of control teenagers could do to someone they perceived to be the cause of all their problems.
“But do you know how I turned it around?”
“No sir,” said William quietly.
“I overwhelmed them, William. I got loose one morning while they were out hunting. I found a hammer in an old tool box, and I waited for them to come down for their nightly party. It was usually after everyone else had gone to bed. I was skinny and in pretty poor shape, but I was desperate. And they were complacent. I clubbed those boys into submission with that hammer. They begged for mercy, and I gave it to them. The same mercy they’d shown me. I beat those boys until their heads were nothing but puddles on the ground.”
William felt a jolt of fear. No stranger to inflicting violence himself, the cold way Riley told the story hammered home why he was such a dangerous man. A product of his circumstances, no doubt, but how he got to be that way was a moot point.
“I lead. I show the people of Concord our full strength, and if they refuse to deal, we overwhelm them. That will be easier if I have every fighting man and woman in New America at their doorstep.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good, see to the preparations. How long?”
“Four weeks. That will give me enough time to prepare, and we can make our move early October.”
Riley looked as though he might argue but, in the end, waved vaguely at Orton.
“Fine. Get to it.”
“Yes sir,” said Orton, standing up and starting for the door.
“Oh, and William,” said President Riley, as his general reached for the door handle. “Don’t shoot any more of my men without a trial. If we’re to maintain law and order, we need to be showing the people that we are just. I don’t want to have to sacrifice you to do that. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” said Orton without turning around.
He went through the door seething.
You little fuck. If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have ‘people’.
By the time he got back to his office in the old police headquarters, he had calmed down. He poured himself a shot of whiskey and sipped at it allowing the liquid to burn his mouth before swallowing it and pouring another.
“Perhaps it’s time for a change of leadership…” he said quietly. A plan began to formulate in his mind.
13
“It’s that one there,” said Luke, gesturing to the house where he’d found the Mustang. Paul pulled Jeep in front of the abandoned home and switched the motor off.
It was a bright sunny morning on the last day of September and three weeks since the
shot that had been fired at Diana and Ben. While everyone had been in a heightened state of alert initially, the passing days and an extended period of hot weather meant that for most of the people of Manchester, things had pretty much gone back to business as usual, apart from the presence of the encampment of soldiers in the old US army facility just down the road.
In fact, life was good. They had power, running water and sewer in the tower. They were now, in fact, more comfortable than they’d been back at the farm.
That morning, Luke had decided to recruit Paul and Jamal to help him try and wake the ’69 Mustang from its long hibernation.
Once out of the Jeep Luke strode down the driveway to the garage door. Standing behind him, Jamal and Paul looked on curiously as he pulled up the door. Dust motes played in the rays of sunshine as Luke looked around the enclosed space. Everything was just as he’d left it.
The Mustang was still under its cover and dominating the room. The locker door that he’d taken the motorcycle leathers was still open. A strange emotion washed over him. It wasn’t sadness exactly, more an echo of the mourning he’d done in the house on the first few nights of his self-imposed banishment.
“Well, let’s see it,” said Paul, eagerly.
“Okay. Sure.”
Luke stepped up to the car and gripped the front corner of the cover and hoisted it. He pulled it up and over the hood with a flourish before dragging it back over the roof and the rest of the body.
Both Paul and Jamal made genuine noises of approval.
“Wow, she’s a beauty,” said Paul, running his hand over the gentle curve of the right fender.
“I know, right?” said Luke.
“Are you sure you’ll be able to start it?”
“I think so,” said Jamal. “You have a key though, right?”
“Yeah, I left it on the passenger seat.”
“Okay, pop the hood.”
Luke climbed in behind the wheel and pulled the lever. With a click and a springy sound, the latch released. Jamal reached under and unclasped the latch before lifting it and revealing the engine.
Fight Like Hell [America Falls Series | Books 1-6] Page 91