Tom Clancy's the Division
Page 27
Two of them raised their hands. They sure looked like brother and sister, she thought. The girl, a few years older, looked more like Aurelio. “Your dad wanted me to tell you that he’s okay,” she said.
“You talked to him?” the boy said. Ivan.
April nodded. “We were on a mission. I guess that’s what you’d call it. He’s okay. He’s planning to come back to DC soon.”
Ivan broke down weeping. He sagged into his sister’s arms, and April had a pang of sympathy for her. Amelia. She must have been feeling the same things he was, but she had to be the big sister. “Amelia,” April said. The girl looked up from her brother. Tears stood in her eyes. “You’ve been brave. You took care of your brother. Your dad is all right. Hang in there and he’ll be back.” She didn’t know this, but what else could she say?
Amelia nodded. Ivan still had his face buried in her chest. April turned to the other kids. “I’m sorry I don’t have news about your parents,” she said.
“We don’t have parents,” said the girl who had told her about Wiley getting shot.
“What’s your name?”
“Violet,” she said. “What’s yours?”
“April.” Looking around, April decided she had to try to get these kids to the JTF base. Whatever battle she’d walked into the middle of, it seemed to be over. “Let’s go. We’re going to talk to the JTF and see if they can help you find a place to stay.”
“We tried to move over to Ford’s Theatre,” said one of the other boys. He seemed older than Ivan and the twins, one of whom was Wiley. “They wouldn’t let us stay there.”
“Okay,” April said. “Tell me your name?”
“I’m Saeed,” he said.
“Okay, Saeed,” April said. “If Ford’s Theatre isn’t going to work out, we’ll find something that does.”
She led them to the JTF perimeter surrounding the South Lawn. “I’ve got kids here who need some help,” she said to the guards. Looking down at her leg, she added, “I think I need some help myself.” Blood had soaked her pants all the way down to her ankle.
The guard let them in and they rested for a minute inside the perimeter fence. April looked around. She’d never been to the White House. The last time she came to DC, her friend Mirabelle had tried to get her a tour, but they were booked up a long way in advance.
She saw a Division agent coming out of a command post between the White House basketball court and the fountain in the middle of the South Lawn. “Hey,” she called.
The agent turned and saw April surrounded by a group of children. Then she saw April’s pack and her expression changed. Here we go again, April thought. When the agent approached, she said, “I’m not in the Division. I just have the pack. It’s a long story, and I have something else to tell you that’s more important.”
The Division agent looked skeptical. “More important than how you got an agent’s gear?”
“Yes,” April said. “But before I tell you, can you get these kids somewhere safe?”
“Stay here,” the agent said.
“I’ve got a hole in my leg,” April said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
* * *
• • •
The agent led the children to a Quonset hut a little ways away, where an access road curved around the South Lawn. She went inside with them and came back out alone a few minutes later. April was trying to stay on top of the pain in her leg, but it was hard. When the agent got close, she said, “I ran across those kids trying to get out of the Smithsonian Castle. I gave them a hand, but someone shot me.”
“We’ll get to that,” the agent said. “First tell me more about how you got the gear.”
April dug in the pocket of her pants and came up with Ike Ronson’s watch. “Here’s some more gear,” she said. “This watch belonged to an agent named Ike Ronson. He’s a traitor. He sold me and a friend of mine out in Michigan. My friend was a Division agent named Aurelio Diaz.”
She waited while the agent ran this information. “Okay,” she said after a minute. “I know Aurelio Diaz, and there is an Ike Ronson in the SHD records. Is Ronson KIA?”
“I don’t know,” April said. “The last I saw him, Aurelio had tied him in a chair and we were running away from a helicopter attack on a lab at the University of Michigan. What’s your name, anyway?”
“What’s yours?”
“April Kelleher.”
“Alani Kelso,” the agent said.
“Weird,” April said. “We have the same initials. Can I tell you a story?”
“If it’s quick,” Kelso said.
“It may not be quick,” April said. “But I promise you it’s worth listening to.”
* * *
• • •
By the time she finished, she was really feeling weak from the wound in her leg. A JTF medic had been by to bandage her up, but April was still feeling like she could fall asleep at any moment. At last the medic had shot her up with pain meds.
“Let me get this straight,” Kelso said. “There’s a treatment for the virus.”
April nodded.
“Someone brought it here from Michigan.”
April nodded again.
“But you don’t know who has it now.”
“That’s right,” April said.
Kelso thought this over. “Okay,” she said. “You know I have to run this through some channels, right?”
“Yeah,” April said. “Contact Aurelio if you don’t believe me.”
“I think I do believe you, as crazy as that sounds,” Kelso said. “You came all the way from Michigan to tell me this?”
“Yeah,” April said. “To tell someone, anyway. Where did the kids go?”
“They’re safe for now,” Kelso said. “The Castle’s holding on for now. They held off the attack, with a little help from us. We won’t send the kids back there, though, unless we can’t find another place for them. It’s not going to be safe for a while.”
“Will you do me a favor? Two of them are Aurelio’s kids. Can you get him a message that they’re safe?” April was really feeling woozy now. It was hard to keep a thought in her head, but she was trying to stay focused on what was important.
“Sure,” Agent Kelso said. “What’s he doing in Connecticut?”
“I should let him explain that,” April said. “But when you talk to him, could you tell him I checked in on his kids and they’re okay?”
“I’ll do that,” Agent Kelso said. “I’m sure he’ll be glad to hear it.”
“And tell someone about the drug,” April said. “It’s here in DC.”
Alani Kelso studied her for a long moment. “I have to be honest with you,” she said. “That’s an insane story. But it’s insane in exactly the right way to suggest that it’s probably true. I’ll see that this information gets where it needs to go.”
“Thank you,” April said. She sat there on the ground outside the JTF medical tent, thinking about all the things that had happened to her—no, all the things she had done—in the past five months. Nearly six. She realized she was drifting when Agent Kelso tapped her on the shoulder.
“Do you know anyone in DC?” Kelso asked.
“I used to,” April said. “But I don’t know if any of them are still alive.” She was thinking of Mirabelle. She had lived not too far from here.
“Well, you can stay here for a few days,” Agent Kelso said. “Then once you’re back on your feet, we’ll see what comes next.”
April thought about that. What did come next? She’d spent every waking moment since the first week of December trying to piece together what had happened to Bill. Now she knew. Now she had passed on vital intelligence to the Division, about a treatment for the Dollar Bug. She was three hundred miles from New York, and never had to go back. She had a bullet wound in her left thigh. All of that came together
into a strange sense of calm. She had the feeling that she had been given a mission, and not known it was a mission until she was already deep into it. Now she had completed it. She knew what Bill had been doing. She knew the battle for the future of the United States of America was not over, but she had done her part for now.
“I think I need to rest a little now,” April said.
“Makes sense to me,” said Agent Kelso.
The world was going to be a better place, April thought. And she had played her part.
About the Author
Alex Irvine has written more than thirty books, both his own original fiction (Buyout, The Narrows, Mystery Hill, A Scattering of Jades) and licensed work for Marvel, Hasbro, Warner Bros., Fox, Blizzard, Legendary, and other international entertainment companies. He has also written comics (Daredevil Noir, Iron Man: Rapture, Hellstorm: Son of Satan - Equinox), games, and animation. The three games he's currently writing—Marvel Avengers Alliance, Marvel War of Heroes, and Marvel PuzzleQuest—together have totaled more than seventy-five million players. Before leaving to write full-time, he spent six years as an English professor at the University of Maine. A native of Ypsilanti, Michigan, he lives in South Portland, Maine, with his wife and three children...and two dogs, a bird, a snake, and a fish. You can find him on Twitter and Facebook.
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