The lieutenant general raised an eyebrow. “Why? If she was supposed to be there, I would imagine she was.”
Simon took a deep breath, attempting to clear his rambling mind.
This is my home, he thought. Alice is my home. It’s too late to go back to the cabin. Winston. Oh, God. I can’t just walk away. I have nowhere left to go.
He pictured his dog, his tail wagging wide, his happy, brown eyes … What were they doing to him?
“What now?” Simon said in a huff. “What are we going to do? You’ve shot and killed several of Karl’s men and discovered their pit of bodies—residents of Alice who were ruthlessly massacred.”
The lieutenant general spoke. “As of right now, we don’t do a thing.”
“But—how can we not?”
“We’ve sent an envoy to Zone Blue, and peace has been made. The entire situation was an accident. We didn’t know that the men we opened fire on were soldiers of Alice and that they were executing those responsible for Tom Byrnes’s death. We have left the pit as it was without further investigation.”
“What!” Simon shouted. A spike of pain jolted from his ribs. “How can you believe that? They’re going to attack Zone Red, you know—the Red Hands are going to attack you!”
“I don’t believe that we made peace—and neither do they. Nobody does. This is politics, my boy: handshakes one minute and hand grenades the next. One of the executed residents we found in the pit, Margaret Alton, worked for us. She was supplying information on Karl and his men when she went missing. We know fighting is inevitable, but waging war is a delicate procedure. However, if the Red Hands think that they can attack Hightown and win, they are greatly mistaken. Their men aren’t real soldiers; they’re a bunch of hooligans. We have them outnumbered and outgunned. They won’t stand a chance.”
Simon shook his head. “You won’t have them outnumbered for long. They have an army marching toward Alice as we speak. Hundreds of men, maybe thousands. We don’t know their numbers. Nick Byrnes’ personal guard, Will Holbrook, informed us just last night. Then this morning, they killed him, tortured him for information.”
Lieutenant General Casey Edmonds grew quiet. Then he said dismissively, “Still, they no longer have the element of surprise. We’ll fully man the line and add additional machine gun nests. Our walls are strong, and we have hardened bunkers. We’ll cut them down like ducks in a pond.”
Mark Rothstein’s gruff voice came flooding into Simon’s memory: When this is all over and Hightown is ours, we’ll have you to thank.
Oh, Christ …
“What if they have tanks?” Simon said. “Mobile rocket launchers and helicopters? Dozens of them.”
“But they don’t—do they?”
Simon sat up in the bed, holding his aching head. A knot the size of a golf ball had formed under his hair.
“Hey,” the corpsman said. “You need to relax.”
Simon shook his head. “I have to see General Driscoll.”
“Like I mentioned earlier,” the Lieutenant General reiterated, “that’s not possible.”
The doctor ran to a small table. “You need painkillers, at least.”
Simon put his hand up to stop the man. “No, I need to keep my head clear.”
“You nearly had your head taken off.”
“Just some ice and aspirin. I’m fine.”
The group looked at Simon, his exposed chest black and blue.
Jeremy handed Simon a new and folded T-shirt from the chair, and pulled from his belt Simon’s Colt .45.
“Found it on one of the dead Red Hands.” Jeremy held the pistol for Simon to take.
Simon took hold of the handle, feeling the cool and familiar metal in his palm. He nodded to Jeremy, and then turned to the lieutenant general.
“Listen to me, please. I’m going to lay it all on you. At home in Alice is General Driscoll’s niece. She’s under suspicion by the Red Hands, and when they find out who she is—if they haven’t found out already—they’ll use her largely to their advantage. She’ll become a bargaining chip.”
Lieutenant General Edmonds looked incredulous. “Is this true? Why haven’t any of you informed me of this? If it is true, why wouldn’t the general mention something sooner?”
“Because we couldn’t tell you,” Simon continued, buttoning his shirt. “She was ordered by General Driscoll, her uncle, to never tell a soul. The general wanted it to be kept as secret as possible. She broke that promise when she told us, and now we’re breaking it once again.”
“But this is different.”
“I know, and that’s why I just told you. Not only that, but I believe the Red Hands have discovered the whereabouts of a large cache of weapons—tanks, helicopters, vehicles—dozens, all brand new, with enough ammunition to wage a devastating war.”
“What makes you believe that?”
“Because I know the location, and I shared this information with several people—Jeremy, Bethany, and Will Holbrook. Will might have told his interrogators the location of the weapons and vehicles. Mark Rothstein implied as much. If the Red Hands get ahold of the cache, you’ll have a much bloodier war coming your way.”
“And you know where these weapons are?”
Simon nodded. “By memory. Take me to General Driscoll.”
The painful throbbing in Simon’s head was still ever-present. Yet, all at once, clarity overtook him, and a map-like chain of events began to unfold in his thoughts.
“I have a plan, and not just about the weapons—I have an idea. I might know how to win this war.”
The lieutenant general looked dismissive. “We have high-ranking officers orchestrating our strategy. What makes you think you can come up with a better plan?”
Simon asked him, “What happens when you remove the head from a snake? The body twitches and kicks but can no longer function. Soon, it lies dead, the poison still inside. Like you said, the Red Hands are not soldiers, and I think I know how to cripple them. Please—I have to see the general right now.”
Lieutenant General Casey Edmonds stayed quiet for a moment.
Then he turned, facing two soldiers standing nearby.
“Private Long, Private Richards,” he shouted. “Get a transport ready ASAP. And send a wire to General Driscoll to expect my arrival.”
“Yes, sir,” they said, and took off running.
Chapter 53
Cinderblock Walls
Karl led Nick down the long, winding hallway of his wing, past the mahogany doors, and into the shared portion of the house.
“Jesus Christ,” Nick muttered. “What the hell?”
“The men took to revelry last night. Perhaps not in the most civil of manners.”
The entry room was destroyed, the furniture missing—dragged outside to be burned—and anything that might have been on top of the furniture had been tossed aside and broken.
“This is my house,” Nick said. “You need to get your men under control.” His head was pounding, throbbing against his skull.
“My apologies, Sir General.” Karl bowed his head. “I’ll see to it that the men clean up proper. Presently, we are needed in the basement.”
“The basement?”
“Follow me.”
The rest of the house looked much the same. Men were still sleeping on couches or where they had collapsed on the floor, drunk, and some half-naked. A few had vomited where they lay, and their faces were plastered to the ground.
Nick’s hangover came back strong.
“Here, Nick. I had a pot of coffee made.” Karl poured them each a cup of coffee in the kitchen, and they walked to the doorway leading to the basement. Two guards saluted as they passed.
At the bottom of the landing, the basement opened up to a carpeted and well-furnished room. Two Red Hands stood at attention at the bottom, shouldering rifles. The previous owner had installed a bar along the far wall, a pool table in the middle of the room, and a dartboard in the corner. The room was untouched by the previous nig
ht’s celebration.
“Want a drink?” Karl laughed, nodding to the bar.
Nick soured his face. “That’s not funny.”
Karl led him to a hallway extending to the unfinished portion of the basement, with doors on either side to the boiler room, storage area, laundry facility, and a workshop. The floor here was concrete, and the walls were cinderblock. In the far rear, behind a closed door, were the staff quarters.
“Right this way, General.”
Karl opened a side door.
Nick walked in.
“Oh, fuck …”
They had entered the laundry room. On the far wall stood a line of washers and dryers. Tables for folding laundry had been moved aside and piled on top of each other. In the center of the room lay Will Holbrook, strapped to a surgical gurney over a drain in the floor. The life had been taken from him. Blood still dripped to the drain in slow, sticky intervals from where it had pooled beneath him.
“What did you do?” Nick was bewildered. Will’s body was barely recognizable; whole pieces of him had been removed and placed on a stainless steel table. A single bulb hung from a cord over the body, casting strange shadows over the cinderblock walls.
“This man committed treason,” Karl said, “defiling your very name. He and his band of mutineers have been rounded up and eliminated.”
“Who else?”
“Frank Morrow, Jeremy Winters, Simon Kalispell, Pat O’Hern, Martin Howard, and lastly, Bethany Rose.”
“They’re all dead?” Nick’s hangover went from bad to worse. “Martin Howard … is he dead?”
“Yes, Martin is dead at long last. Chris Lockton proved himself to be a worthy comrade. His outburst during your speech played into the right ears. We’ve brought Pat O’Hern and Bethany Rose in for additional questioning.”
“Questioning? For what?” Nick looked at the form of his former guard on the table, naked to his exposed viscera. “Are you going to question them like this?”
“I don’t inquire as to the good doctor’s methods. He’s a master at his craft.”
“And what, exactly, is his craft?”
“You see it before your eyes—a work of art.”
Nick shook his head.
“William gave us a good deal of information before he expired. He informed us of the location of an abundance of weaponry—vehicles, tanks, and helicopters. He gave us this information in exchange for his life. A promise we kept. We only did one thing first, which was to remove his genitalia, and then we opened the door for him to leave. In the end, he decided to take the honorable way out and beg for our mercy, which we showed him by ending his suffering.”
Nick’s ears picked up. “Weapons? Where are these weapons?”
Karl laughed. “I knew that would wake you up, old sport. Not far. We’ve sent a scout to check the legitimacy of the claim. In two days’ time, Priest Dietrich will arrive in Alice. But first, his men will arm themselves with whatever vehicles and ammunition there is to take. We will signal the horns, eliminate the peasants here in Alice, and ride into Zone Red and to victory beyond.”
Nick envisioned himself on horseback, leading a charge with his Dragoons. Maybe now, though, he would be riding on the back of a tank rather than a horse.
“What about the others?” Nick asked. “Pat and Beth? What information do they possess?”
“Pat knows the layout of Hightown better than anyone in Alice. He’s been a lifelong friend of General Driscoll. Bethany must know the layout as well, being that she recently arrived. Not only that, but her name came up during our interrogation with Mr. Holbrook. However, we couldn’t get much out of him. The boy was strong, I’ll give him that.”
Nick stood motionless. He was in the presence of a true psychopath.
“If we’re going to do this, let’s get it over with,” Nick said, his face sour. “Interrogate them both at once.”
“Oh, come on now.” Karl clapped the back of Nick’s shoulder. “Lighten up; you’re too serious. Try to enjoy life. They need to be interrogated separately, and this is the only room with a drain. Besides, it is up to the good doctor to decide the methods.”
Too serious? Nick could not imagine a more serious scene than the one he was witnessing. The sound of Karl’s laughter combined with the pools of blood, the lifeless body, the table of entrails, and the smell of musky death in the air made his head spin.
“Let’s get out of here. No need for a second interrogator. Go on as planned.”
Just then, a short man with dark, beady eyes hidden behind wire-rimmed glasses entered the room. The man paused before Karl and Nick, a sense of agitation across his face. He was carrying two leather satchel bags.
“Ah, Doctor Arthur Freeman. Please, let me introduce you to General Nicholas Byrnes.”
“Oh, yes,” the doctor said.
Dr. Freeman walked around them, eyeing Will Holbrook for any changes made by Nick or Karl. He scratched the bald spot on the top of his head, as if deciphering some great divination.
Karl leaned to Nick’s ear as the doctor removed a portable stereo from one of his bags. “Let’s leave the good doctor to his work.”
Karl left, and Nick followed, looking over his shoulder to see the doctor remove gleaming tools—scalpels, forceps, dissection scissors, even a chef’s knife—from his bag, one at a time, and place them on the stainless steel table. Each move the doctor made was precise. Nick shut the door as the doctor was polishing a fillet blade.
Outside the door, Nick asked, “He’s … crazy?”
“The man is an artist, and the world is his canvas. Perhaps he is a bit of an eccentric, but the good doctor is the best field surgeon you will ever have the pleasure of meeting. He can put things back together just as easily as he can take them apart.”
“He seems to enjoy his work a bit too much.”
“Ha!” Karl bellowed. “In more ways than you could imagine.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The man”—Karl raised his fingers like a Boy Scout giving an oath, his other hand over his heart—“is an honest-to-God cannibal. Swear on my mother’s grave. Even before the war he was a wanted fugitive. Rumor has it that he enjoys his meals fresh and still wriggling. You see, this end-of-times business has benefited him greatly.”
They walked up the hallway as classical music floated from behind the closed door.
“Schubert,” Karl said. “The man has impeccable taste.” And then he started to laugh. “In more ways than one.”
Nick shook his head, looking over his shoulder to the private chamber.
Walking back into the game room, they were met by Mark Rothstein, Sultan, and the young sergeant, Ryan Pechman.
Karl stopped short before his injured and frazzled officers. “Nicholas,” he said. “Go on upstairs. I’ll be right behind you.”
Nick passed the officers, noticing that Mark was limping with a bandage tied around his thigh, and Sergeant Pechman was clutching a bloody cloth over his stomach.
“What happened?” Nick insisted.
Mark opened his mouth to speak, but Karl spoke up. “I will give you a full report in a moment. Leave me to confer with my men.” His looked straight at Nick, the lines in his face unflinching. “Now, Sir General.”
Nick was going to insist he stay, but his stomach was churning and he needed another aspirin—desperately. He went upstairs without further hesitation.
The men stood before Karl Metzger.
“What happened?” Karl asked.
“They were out there, in the field.”
“Who was out there in the field, Mr. Rothstein?”
“Men from Zone Red. They had scouts hiding, snipers.”
“Jesus …” Karl shook his head. “Incompetent fools! Are they dead? The ones you had rounded up?”
“Um …” Mark looked to Sultan. “Martin is for sure, and Simon. I saw him take a bullet to his chest, and I walloped his head with the butt of my rifle. He’s in the pit. I don’t know about the r
est.”
“You left them there? Alive?”
“It’s just that … we were under fire,” Sergeant Pechman said. Karl stared at the sergeant, making the young man fidget. “They—they killed four of us before we knew they was coming.”
“And how many of them did you kill in return? Hmm? Was it all of them, the entire group of scouts? Because if you did not, then it is certain that Zone Red has saved those men that you failed to kill and has now discovered our intent.”
“I don’t think so,” Sergeant Pechman said. Mark and Sultan exchanged glances and inched away from the injured man.
“No?” Karl turned to him, amused. “You don’t think so, do you? And why is that?”
“They sent an envoy with the cargo team. They’ve apologized. They didn’t know it was us out there and the men we was executing were prisoners. They’ve fallen back, left the grave untouched.”
“Oh.” Karl’s eyebrows rose. “Well, maybe we got off lucky then.”
“Um, yes, sir, I think—”
Karl Metzger stepped toward him, bumping into Sergeant Pechman’s chest, making the injured man wince. He loomed tall over the young sergeant, casting his face in shadow.
“Who … the fuck … asked for your opinion?”
“I-I, um,” he swallowed, “sir—”
Karl reached out and grabbed Sergeant Pechman by the throat. His eyes seemed to throb as Karl’s grip tightened, and he dropped the bloody rags clutched to his wound, grabbing at Karl’s wrists.
His feet lifted off the ground for the last conscious moment of his life as something audibly snapped. When Karl let go, Sergeant Pechman fell to the ground, his eyes staring up at the ceiling, eyelids twitching.
Karl unholstered his pistol, shot the man in the head, and re-holstered his pistol. Mark Rothstein and Sultan did not budge. The smell of cordite loomed thick in the air.
Karl sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He turned toward the staircase.
“Find out who was killed out there and who was not,” Karl shouted behind him. “And bury that hole in the field before Zone Red goes snooping through the bodies—if they haven’t already.”
Karl gestured to the body of Sergeant Pechman.
The After War Page 37