Logan ran his hand across the top of his head. “I thought the military was pulling back from Texas. You just said that.”
“They don’t know that. They’ll come around,” Bailey said confidently. “We provide protection and weapons and unfettered access to the world beyond Texas. They’ll fall in line. Use your skills of persuasion.”
“What if we don’t or can’t?” asked Logan.
Bailey shrugged. “The colonel finds others who will. Simple as that. It’s either eat or be eaten. Which would you rather?”
Buck was beginning to understand the game here. The colonel and whoever was pulling his strings, wanted Texas unstable. But they wanted to control that instability. The former state had too many resources to ignore and too many problems to overlook. If they couldn’t control the anarchy within the state’s borders, it would spill over into neighboring territories. It wouldn’t be long before Louisiana, Oklahoma and New Mexico fell to the collections of gangs.
“If you can’t beat ’em,” said Buck, “join ’em.”
“Bingo.” Bailey aimed a finger at Buck and winked. “This is a long-term proposition, gentlemen. We’re talking years. You won’t take control overnight. Once you do, you’ll have to work to maintain your power. But I assure you, it will be worth it. In the aftermath of a plague like the Scourge, it’s much better to be the ones at the top of the crumbling heap than at the bottom.”
There were too many metaphors in this scenario. The bottom line for Buck was that he could do what he was already doing, running illicit drugs, but with the blessing of the government. Plus he’d have power unlike that he’d ever had before.
“What’s the structure?” he asked. “How do we parse out responsibilities, hierarchy, et cetera? What’s the colonel have to say about that?”
“He suggests four territories,” said Bailey. “Beyond that it’s up to us.”
Buck scratched the itch on his jawline. “I’ve got an idea about how we do this.”
“Go ahead,” said Bailey.
Buck searched the other two for their permission. When they nodded their approval, he stood. He paced, mulling over the best way to communicate his thoughts.
“We’ll call ourselves the Cartel,” he said. “But we’ll employ a military structure. The four of us will be generals.”
Logan laughed. “Generals?”
“Why not?” said Buck. “We’re the top of the food chain. We run things from a ten-thousand-foot view. We don’t get our hands dirty. We have the people under us do that.”
“What will you call them?” asked Logan. “Colonels?”
“We already have a colonel,” said Buck. “Whittenburg. It would be confusing to call the next in command by the same rank. We’ll call them captains. Each of us has a captain who runs the day-to-day operations in our areas. The captains pick bosses. Bosses recruit grunts. The grunts are at the street level. They do the nasty things it takes to instill fear in the non-compliant.”
“That’s four layers of leadership, not including Whittenburg,” Manuse pointed out. “Is that necessary? Do we need that much?”
Buck took off his hat and ran his fingers through the long, graying locks of hair matted to his head. He stood with his feet shoulder width apart, planted squarely in front of Manuse. “We do. I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna guess we’ll run into plenty of disobedient Texans. You know Texans are independent folks. They don’t like being told what to do or how to do it. They won’t give up their guns, won’t hand over their land. I’m not about to be in the middle of that. Let the grunts handle it. Let them report to the bosses. If it gets big enough, a boss can alert a captain. Only if it’s urgent do we ever need to know about the little people. We can focus on the big picture, the flow of goods and whatnot.”
Manuse pounded a fist on the table. “I like it.”
Bailey stood from his stool, leaving his coffee on the table and offered his hand. Buck took it.
“Good plan,” said Bailey. “Now we need to recruit the captains, the bosses and the grunts. Plus I gotta get myself a hat like yours.”
Buck shook Bailey’s hand. “Finding the hat will be easier than finding the men.”
They laughed. Bailey slapped Buck on the shoulder. The tension the major had brought with him into the room dissolved. Buck guessed that Bailey agreeing with him was a tactical maneuver. The major had to know he was the outsider, as much as there was one and that anything he could do to ingratiate himself with the others was a smart move. It didn’t matter to Buck in the moment. Motivation was unimportant.
Buck turned from Bailey and faced Logan. “What do you think? I want to hear your opinion.”
This was also tactical. Regardless of his feelings about any of the men in this room, they were a team now. The four of them together would run Texas. If they were to be successful, they had to be on the same page. Otherwise they’d fail or cannibalize each other. There would be enough to worry about without having to consider the betrayal of other generals. He needed Logan to think his opinion mattered.
“I think it’s a smart plan,” he said. “As much as I hate to admit it, it’s better than anything I could think of right now. I’m on board. Let’s go with it, General Buck.”
Logan stood and offered his hand. Buck eyed it warily then took it. Logan’s shake was much less aggressive this time.
“Call me Roof,” said Buck. “All my friends do.”
“Okay then,” said Logan. “Let’s go with it, General Roof.”
CHAPTER 21
MARCH 13, 2033
SCOURGE +163 DAYS
COCOA BEACH, FLORIDA
Miriam was at the kitchen sink when she heard the knock at the front door. She hesitated, a wet dish towel in her hand, making certain of what she’d heard. The ambient rumble of the generator and the sounds of the kids playing in the family room made it difficult to isolate other noises. She’d thought a pair of loud pops a minute earlier came from the back of the house, either from the deck or the water. It was hard to tell. Sound carried across the water, making far-off noises sound closer than they were.
The knock came again. This time it was harder. The heel of a fist pounded with desperate urgency. Miriam was sure the noise came from the door.
She twisted the towel with both hands, wringing out the excess water into the basin and draped it over the edge of the farmhouse sink. A third series of knocks was loud enough to silence the children. They whipped their attention toward the front door and then to Miriam.
Phil was out back on the boat. He was repairing a fishing net they’d used to haul in catches once they’d reeled them close to the stern. He wouldn’t hear her if she called to him. Their mother was upstairs sleeping off her inebriation. Even if Miriam called to her, it wouldn’t do any good. This was on her.
She wiped her hands on her pants and moved toward the front door. As she passed the children, she lifted a finger to her lips, pulling the nine millimeter from the holster on her hip.
Miriam thought about calling out, asking who was at the door, but decided against it. For a split second, she wondered if it was Mike and the others.
She dismissed that consideration even as it entered her mind. They had keys. They’d come in through the side door. Or they’d be yelling through the door, announcing who they were.
Whoever was at the front door, it wasn’t someone she knew. Miriam padded up two steps and into the foyer, the tile cold beneath the thin cotton fabric of her socks. On the other side of the door, something was moving around.
The front door was solid wood painted a glossy black. There was a peephole at eye level and to the right of the door there was an intercom connected to the security system. Quietly, she stepped to the peephole and glanced through. She moved her eye from one side to the other, hoping to get a good look at the visitor.
The person at the door was a man, she could tell that. But it was twilight and the sinking sun cast a shadow across his face. She tried to make out his features. Then he
stared directly into the peephole. His eye locked on hers, as if he could see her. She backed away and reached for the intercom.
She stepped back to the peephole and pushed the button to talk. “Hello?”
The man looked up and from side to side, searching for the source of her voice. Confused, he shouted, “I need help! Can you help me?”
When he stepped back, Miriam got a better look at him. He was younger than she at first thought. He was chubby, bordering on overweight.
She pushed the intercom again. “What kind of help do you need?”
“I’m hungry and thirsty. Could you spare a can of food? A cup of water? Do you have any food or water?”
His appearance didn’t indicate he was starving. It had been six months since the Scourge. Everyone she knew, all eight of those who’d survived aboard the Rising Star, had lost weight. Even the children were thinner. Mike, who was thin before the end of the world, somehow added muscle, although he was leaner than before. Then again, she didn’t know how heavy the man at the door had been before the plague. Maybe he’d lost weight. He could be chubby and starving. He could be dehydrated and thirsty.
Miriam pushed the button again. She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, she heard a scream behind her. It was high pitched. A child’s scream.
Sally!
Miriam ignored the man at the door and hurried to the family room. She bounded down the two steps into the main part of the house, where she stopped and raised the handgun. Her finger on the trigger, she leveled it at the wiry man holding the girl against his body with a hand over her mouth. Sally’s eyes were wide with fear. A puddle of urine pooled at her feet.
Then she noticed another man, younger and taller, with his hands on Jimmy’s shoulders. The grip was tight enough that as Jimmy squirmed, the man held him in place. Tears streaked down the boy’s reddened face and his chin quivered.
The older man jutted his chin at the gun in Miriam’s hands. “Drop it.”
Miriam didn’t drop it. She swept the gun back and forth between the two men, not sure at whom to aim since both were equal threats. The older one had a rifle strapped over his shoulder. The younger one held a shotgun out to the side, but he couldn’t use it with one hand. She had the advantage as far as she could tell. As long as she had them at gunpoint, they couldn’t do anything.
Her voice was shaky now, not as confident as when she’d spoken to the man at the door. The man who she now understood was a decoy, a distraction to draw her away from the children.
“Who are you?”
There was no hint of any emotion on the older man’s face, no hint he was holding a child hostage. “I told you to drop the gun.” His voice was dispassionate, like he was ordering food at a drive-through. “It doesn’t matter who we are. What matters is I’ve got your kids.”
Miriam didn’t correct him. She gained nothing by admitting they weren’t her children. It was irrelevant. She wasn’t about to lower the weapon though.
The man rolled his eyes and sighed. “Look, I’ve got a gun pointed at the back of this little bed wetter here. You don’t drop yours, I’m going to have to use mine.”
That changed things. Miriam shifted her aim to the younger one, then back again. A thousand questions raced through her mind.
How did they get into the house? Where was the man at the door? Would the older one really shoot Sally? A kid? Was Betsy sleeping?
The older one tightened his hand around Sally’s mouth and pulled her closer against his body. She squealed. The muffled sound was pained.
“We’ll give you whatever you want,” Miriam blurted out. “We’ve got food, water, hot showers. You don’t have to do this. We’ll help you.”
The man tilted his head to one side. “You don’t have to help me. I get to take whatever I want. It’s funny you think you have any say in this.”
“They’re children,” said Miriam. “Let them go. You can take whatever you want.”
The man pulled the gun from behind Sally’s back and pushed it against her temple. Sally squeezed her eyes shut, pressing tears down her cheeks.
The man glanced to the right. Miriam didn’t follow his gaze at first. A noise from the kitchen drew her attention.
Standing by the island was the man from the front door. She recognized his frumpy shape. He was holding a rifle to his shoulder, aimed directly at her.
The older man clucked his tongue on the roof of his mouth. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Don’t look like you got the upper hand now, do it? If you don’t drop that gun right now and step away from it, my friend here is gonna pull his trigger. Then these kids are gonna see their momma die. Do we want that?”
“I don’t want that,” said the taller, younger man holding Jimmy.
The chubby rifleman shook his head. “I don’t neither.”
Miriam’s hand trembled. She couldn’t keep the gun steady. Her knees weakened. She couldn’t see a way out of this.
“She’s not our mom,” Jimmy said.
The older man’s brow wrinkled, then his eyes widened and a smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. He looked at Jimmy, the gun jammed against Sally’s head, his hand over her mouth. “What’s that?”
Miriam hadn’t dropped the gun, but the invaders were preoccupied with the new information Jimmy shouldn’t have shared. The kid clearly didn’t understand what he was saying. What it meant.
“She’s not my mom. She’s just living with us. She and a bunch of other people. They’re coming back. They’ve got guns. They’re gonna shoot you when they get here.”
Miriam bit the inside of her cheek so hard blood seeped into her mouth. She wanted to yell at Jimmy, tell him to shut up. That wouldn’t help anything. Instead she raised her hands above her head and squatted. “I’m putting down the gun, okay? You can take what you want.”
The tall one cursed. “I told you we should wait until morning, Trick. I told you it wasn’t a good idea coming into a house with people inside. And now we gotta—”
The older one growled and cursed. “Are you kidding me? Now is not the time, Cooper.”
The once impassive Trick now gritted his teeth when he spoke. A thick blood vessel ran along the side of his neck, straining at his reddened skin. The younger one, Cooper, didn’t cower. There was obvious discord. Miriam’s mind raced, trying to find some way to exploit it. Nothing materialized.
Trick took a deep breath in through his flared nostrils. He closed his eyes for a split second and then plastered a smile on his face. His voice softened and he said to Jimmy, “Where is your mother?”
Jimmy checked with Miriam. She signaled him to stay quiet or to lie, attempting an almost imperceptible shake of her head. It didn’t go unnoticed.
Cooper tightened his grip on Jimmy and he glared at her. “Don’t listen to her. That’s gonna get you hurt.”
Miriam was crouched. She’d slid the gun away from her reach. Her hands weren’t raised, but she held them in front of her, palms facing the intruders. She was exposed. There was nothing she could do to stop the men. Her eyes flitted to the gun.
“Don’t think about it,” said Cooper. “Go sit over there.”
Trick said nothing, apparently okay with Cooper’s instructions. Miriam stood and moved deliberately toward the sofa. She lowered herself and perched on the edge of the cushion. Exhaustion washed over her.
These men had been here for no more than two minutes, but to Miriam it felt as if everything was in slow motion. Every breath, every word, every muscle twitch was stretched into an eternity.
When she was a young driver, Miriam was once following a pickup truck too closely. The truck stopped short at a red light. She didn’t hit the brakes fast or hard enough and she’d slammed her Honda into the back of the truck. From the instant she saw the Dole light illuminate on the back of the truck’s cab to the silence after the crunch of the collision, every split second stretched into minutes. All these years later, she could vividly recall that sensation of time slowing to a crawl: the sights,
the sounds, the smells, the taste in her mouth, the sensation of muscles tensing to uncomfortable rigidity.
That was how she felt now. It was like she could see the collision coming; she knew there was no avoiding it. She worked in her mind the possibilities of stopping it. Those possibilities were improbabilities. They were futile efforts. The only thing worth doing now was bracing for impact.
Jimmy looked at her and then at the floor. “She’s upstairs. I think she’s asleep.”
Trick looked over at Chubby. “Go get her.”
Chubby twitched. “Me?”
“Yeah, you. Go upstairs and get her. Bring her down here.”
Chubby mumbled something under his breath and dipped his chin like a petulant child. He lowered the rifle and stepped around the island. He clopped along the tile floor and into the family room, walked behind the other two, close to the floor-to-ceiling windows and marched up the stairs and out of sight.
This wasn’t good. At least Phil was outside. Maybe he’d heard what was going on or he’d seen it from the boat and was getting help. Or he was planning his attack. There were weapons on the boat, things he could use in a pinch to even the field.
Trick bent down, his face above the gun pressed to Sally’s head. He put his mouth to her ear, behind the barrel of the semiautomatic. “I’m gonna take my hand off your mouth. If you scream, I’m gonna kill you and your babysitter here. You understand?”
Sally’s tear-swollen eyes blinked and she nodded. Her knees trembled, chest heaving in the stilted movement of someone trying to calm themselves but was on the edge of hyperventilating.
When Trick pulled his hand from her mouth, a pink and white impression of his fingers marked Sally’s face. He lowered the gun and shoved her toward the sofa. “Stay there with your babysitter. Don’t get up.”
The Scourge (Book 2): Adrift Page 22