The Post

by Kevin A. Muñoz

  “Don’t be trigger-happy,” I remind her. “If it’s Banderas, we’re going to need him alive.”

  Luther nods, and when the shriek pierces the air, muffled by concrete walls, I push open the door. We hurry across the unadorned, echo-laden corridor as quietly but as quickly as possible. The shrieking stops before we reach the door, but I’m certain it’s the correct one. I test the handle and find it locked, which is disappointing but not surprising. And shooting the lock won’t help. I know from my training years ago that pistols don’t do enough damage to the mechanism to break it; they only jam the lock more.

  “Banderas,” I call out, “we know you’re inside. You have nowhere to go.”

  I hear movement and voices on the other side of the door: more than one person in the apartment.

  “We only care about the girl,” Luther adds. “Surrender easy, and we can exchange you for her. No one has to get hurt.” She shrugs at me and whispers, “Worth a shot, right?”

  “It’s too late for that.” The unfamiliar voice is loaded with amusement and contempt. “They’re long gone.” Someone on the inside keys the lock and the door swings open, revealing an empty apartment and three men, one of them dead on the floor, soaked in blood.

  I recognize Banderas as the man who opened the door. Micah Abraham is by the back windows, tending to a set of portable speakers attached to his ancient tape player and a cobbled together battery pack. A glance at Luther, who interviewed him after Braithwaite’s arrest, tells me that she can make no more sense of it than I can. I thought he was harmless; I thought his only involvement was his hatred of me.

  What else have I missed?

  “Arrest us,” Banderas says, “lock us up, do whatever you think you have to do. But if you want to see that girl again, you’re also going to do exactly what I tell you.”

  I take the threat as bluster and ignore it. Banderas has already admitted that Randall fled with Phoebe. Following the kidnapper’s instructions in a world without cell phones isn’t likely to bring her back. So I’ll take the easy capture and worry about the consequences later. I tell Luther to deliver Banderas and Micah to the station and secure them until I return.

  As they leave, Micah gives me a look that seems to apologize for what he’s done, but I have no more sympathy for him than I do for Braithwaite. They should have trusted us. They could have confided in me. Maybe I would have found another way. They wouldn’t have had to make unholy bargains.

  And even if I couldn’t have fixed it, at least I would have known what was coming. Maybe Owen and Abigail would still be alive and in Macon, with people to look after them. Away from here where they were never safe.

  DAY TWELVE, 8:00 A.M.

  The surviving population of Inman Park is amassed now in the middle of Moreland Avenue like their own kind of horde. A few have suitcases and bags, but most are still dressed in night clothes. Some are shoeless, with blood-streaked feet cut by the uneven and unmaintained asphalt. The majority are in shock, either in tears or staring back at their former homes with expressionless faces.

  My heart breaks when I see Barkov again. He is moving slowly through the street, carrying his blood-covered wife. For a moment I have hope that she is alive, but when I reach him to help carry her, I see that the gash in her arm is deep enough to sever an artery. The last of her blood is seeping off her clothes and onto the asphalt.

  We set her down in the shadow of one of the plaza’s trees. I don’t even try to find words. Barkov’s usual easy manner, which I’ve always assumed masked a stoic inner life, is gone. What’s left is the raw meat of a personality much darker than I imagined. There is nothing I can say to him. If he blames me for his wife’s death, for stumbling my way into letting Randall and Banderas escape to Inman Park, I will have difficulty disagreeing. The best I can do, the least that I owe him, is to meet his gaze, then leave him to his grief.

  Mayor Weeks has found the surviving leaders of the enclave and is in deep discussion with them. Passing by, I overhear ideas about how to direct the sweep team to finish clearing out the enclave’s streets as quickly as possible—if it is possible. The work is difficult and dangerous, tempting a frenzy at every footstep. That is a task that should involve me, but I have other, more pressing responsibilities. The refugees are alive and safe for the moment. They don’t need my help.

  Luther is waiting just inside the door of the station, finishing the dregs of a cup of coffee, watching the cell. The Little Five’s station was never meant to hold more than one person at a time, but now Braithwaite, Banderas, and Abraham share the cramped space.

  “It’s done,” I tell Luther. “I was able to get across the rooftops, close to the bridge. I played the tape as long as I could.” I drop the cassette on my desk. “Most of them are heading back the way they came now.”

  Braithwaite’s expression has hardly changed. She seems not to care that the others are near. She sits on the far edge of the hard cot, staring at the floor. Abraham’s demeanor shifts from confusion to anger when he notices that I’ve entered. He comes to the bars and grips them like a malefactor. Banderas stands in the shadows, arms crossed as if waiting for me. He looks up when I close the door, and I see nothing but satisfaction in his eyes.

  It’s clear which of the three I need to interrogate first. If I start with Banderas and he refuses to talk, that will embolden Abraham to try the same. I’m not going to get anything new out of Braithwaite, by the look of her. Abraham is the most fragile. He lets his anger and fear do stupid things on his behalf. Maybe they will make him talk.

  “Where are Pritch and Kloves?” I ask Luther as she sets down her coffee cup. “And how is Olsen?”

  “I just sent them to the fence. I figured you’d want eyes on the ’heads. Olsen’s with the docs. Last I saw him they were bringing him to the walk-in fridge.” She shrugs. “I don’t know.”

  Acknowledging Luther with a nod, I unlock the cell door and gesture for Micah to come outside. There is a storage closet to one side, which will have to suffice as an interrogation room for now. I drag two chairs with me as I usher Micah into it, then direct him to sit down. His jaw tightens as he watches me take my seat. He makes an effort not to fidget.

  “Right now,” I begin, “I don’t care about why you’re involved in all of this, or how much you hate me, or what your justifications are for being part of a kidnapping and a near slaughter. So we’re not going to talk about any of that. All I want to know is where Phoebe’s being taken.”

  “Why the fuck would I tell you anything?” Micah says, spitting the words as if to compensate for his bewilderment. “You’re the reason all of this is happening.”

  “I’m not responsible for this,” I say. “And pointing fingers doesn’t put you in any kind of a good position. Your actions today led to the deaths of I don’t know how many people. Good people. Neighbors.”

  “How do you think it’s going to be when we can’t make diesel anymore?” Micah retorts, leaning forward.

  “I get it, Micah. Belinda made some kind of a deal with these people to provide the chemicals she needs. In return for what? Favored nation prices on everything she produces? There’s nothing terrible about that. That’s a deal anyone would have been happy with.” I know this wasn’t the real agreement, but either Micah won’t take the bait, or he doesn’t know the truth.

  He leans back again, crossing his substantial arms over his belly. “If she could have trusted you, you’d know enough not to look into the girl and where she came from. Hell, you might’ve killed the two of them yourself.” He emits a strangled laugh. “Fuck. It’s my fault, isn’t it?”

  “How is it your fault?”

  “Because Belinda stopped trusting you after Amanda. Because I told her what happened, and what you did, and why she was gone.”

  “Amanda is gone because she was stealing food,” I say, though I shouldn’t reopen old wounds. I can’t afford to distract him.

  I’m thankful that he doesn’
t pursue it. “Yeah, well,” he says. “Belinda stopped trusting you. We all did. If she hadn’t, she might have told you everything. Asked your advice. Tried to find a way out. Something. I don’t know. Or even if it had to go down the same way, at least you’d be on board, and when the strangers came—”

  Micah’s body seems to compress into the chair. “If we didn’t let Randall get away, they were just going to come with more people. We were going to be right back at the beginning. At least this way Belinda has a chance to make the deal work again.” His eyes, shining and hard, rise to meet mine. “But you won’t allow that to happen, will you? You and your fucking black and white cop morality.”

  I hear the door to the station open and muffled voices in the main room. I consider stopping the interview to check on Luther but decide against it. Micah is too close to telling me what I need to know.

  “That depends on what the deal was,” I say, though I can tell from Micah’s expression that he doesn’t believe me.

  “Phoebe isn’t retribution,” Micah says. “She’s just the first.”

  “The first what?” I blurt out, but before I’ve finished the question, I know the answer. Enough of it, anyway, to see the parts that matter to the Little Five. Owen told me that Abigail wasn’t from Dahlonega. When he fled with her, he took a marked map with him. A map that must be related in some way to the numbers station that Braithwaite set up for Randall’s people.

  “There are going to be more,” Micah continues, ignoring my question. “Maybe all of them, since they’re pissed off now.”

  Human trafficking. An immovable certainty settles itself deep inside my chest. And the weight is more terrible than anything I’ve been imagining. Regina told me: there were more. Abigail wasn’t the only one. I’ve been so naïve.

  I push aside all pretense at understanding. “Where did they go, Micah? Where did he take her? To Dahlonega?”

  “Oh,” he answers with a growing defiance. “You’re going to hunt him down and take her back? And then what? They’re just going to come again. I told you that!”

  “We can protect ourselves. We’ve managed so far. We’ve never been breached by a horde.” But that’s just a deflection. I don’t even believe it. Humans and hollow-heads behave differently from one another. A fence might hold back a mindless animal, but not men with vehicles and guns.

  “Sure,” Micah says. “Chief Edison, shield of this shining beacon of civilization. Do you have any idea how much biodiesel we supplied them with? Fuck’s sake. They must have a whole fleet of trucks.” Then, for a moment, he relaxes. He shrugs. “Besides, I don’t even know. We’ve only ever seen them coming with the Clarke County traders. But that doesn’t mean shit.”

  As if to punctuate Micah’s words, a scream penetrates the closed door. The first person I see when I crash through it is Mikhail Barkov, gripping a knife in one hand while the other holds Banderas’s wrist against the top of my desk. Blood spurts from the wound where the man’s left ring finger used to be.

  Banderas thrashes, but Barkov has all the leverage. His captive crumples against the side of the desk, knees hitting the handle of a drawer. As I reach for my weapon, Barkov shouts, “Answer the question, and I’ll take you to a doctor.”

  I shout his name in response, raising the weapon Luther gave me in Inman Park. Luther, still standing by the door, fumbles for her own sidearm.

  Banderas looks at me, both relieved and pleading. The color is leaving his face, most of it still splashing all over my desk. Barkov glances in my direction. “Let me do my job, Edison.”

  “Your job?” I repeat. “It’s not a job, it’s just revenge. You’re going to kill him! He’s not going to tell you anything. At most he’s going to lie, and that won’t get us anywhere.”

  Barkov allows himself a chuckle. “American squeamishness. If we don’t find his friend where he tells us to look, we will take off his balls and feed them to him. He won’t lie.”

  “This isn’t your concern.” Watching Barkov’s expression over the sight of the gun makes me falter. I’ve never shot a man who wasn’t hollow.

  “This man killed my wife,” Barkov insists. Although his tone is level, calm, his accent is thickening. “And he did it on orders from someone else. I want to know who.”

  “It’s the same people who took Phoebe,” I explain, looking at Banderas again. His breathing is becoming labored. “I can get the answers another way. Let him go.”

  Barkov doesn’t move. He keeps the knife poised, blood coagulating on the blade edge. Banderas struggles to get his feet under him, and I can see that he has regained some of his composure now that I’m nominally on his side. He glares at Barkov. “Go ahead. Take another finger. You don’t have any authority here.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I see Belinda Braithwaite moving toward the open cell door. She isn’t trying to leave; she’s trying to get a better angle. Her eyes aren’t on Barkov or Banderas. She is watching Luther.

  And Luther is watching her.

  Luther says, “Put down the knife, Mikhail. I won’t ask a second time.”

  I feel Micah pushing against me, looking over my shoulder, filling the doorway with the stink of his sweat. “Shit,” he mutters. “You have to let him go,” he says, and I assume he is speaking to Barkov until he adds, “Chief. Please. She’s gone. Leave it be.”

  Micah’s callousness is a calculation. Braithwaite’s earlier catatonia came from the same place. They both knew that my success meant the Little Five’s suffering. Finding Phoebe can only end the same way. They are taking a broader view of things. But I refuse to do that. Phoebe deserves more from me than that. She deserves more from everyone. She is owed every effort to keep her safe, to give her a life without open wounds.

  “I will get the answers my way,” I tell Barkov. “I already know generally where to look. He needs a doctor.” Barkov shakes his head almost imperceptibly, and I add, “I will get justice for both of us. For the Little Five and for Inman Park. For Amy. Right now, you have to look after your people who are alive. You can’t do that if you’re locked up or dead.”

  Barkov looks briefly behind him, catching sight of Luther’s weapon. He lets out a long sigh and releases Banderas’s wrist, sheathing his knife on his belt. The prisoner stumbles back, clutching his bleeding hand to his chest, trying to staunch the flow of blood with his fingers.

  I don’t see sorrow in Barkov’s eyes as he turns away from his quarry. I see a practiced deadness that he must have used many times in his former life. “You are making a mistake not taking my help,” he says. “Come find me when you change your mind.” He leaves the station as calmly as if he had just paid a parking ticket.

  The moment that Barkov is outside, I move toward Banderas. “Luther, go fetch Marilyn. Tell her to bring her kit.”

  Braithwaite says, “Addie.”

  I look up. The two women are locked in a silent conversation, eye to eye, from across the room.

  “I can’t,” Luther says, but it’s not clear what she means, or who she’s talking to.

  “Luther,” I insist. Then I realize that she still has her weapon raised. She begins to bring it down as Banderas moves to sit in my chair.

  “Holy mother of god,” Micah says. “Bel, you never said—”

  “Not now,” Braithwaite says sharply. “Addie. Think about what you’re doing.”

  Luther twists her head as if to deny something, but the movement is tortured, conflicted. Braithwaite continues, “It’s too late now. Maybe I can renegotiate. But we’re not going to get Phoebe back. And if we try, they’ll only come for more. And they won’t listen to me. You have to know it’s true. We’ve talked about this. Don’t make it worse. We have to let him go!”

  I should say something. I should intervene, interfere, find a way into Luther’s head. But my mouth is dry. Too many pieces have fallen into place for one day already. My mind reels at the realization that there were more pieces than I could see. Pieces I should
have known were missing. I don’t know what to say to make her stop. I don’t know if the words exist.

  Braithwaite and Abraham don’t own rifles. I don’t even think they know how to shoot.

  Luther was the one to find Abigail dead. I trusted her description of what she saw. But Abigail must have known her attacker. There were blood streaks on the floor. Signs of a struggle in the expected places.

  But she wasn’t killed in her bed.

  She was killed when she answered the door and let Adelaide Luther inside.

  It had to be that way. Micah’s self-pitying complaint only makes sense in this light. When Braithwaite couldn’t trust me anymore, she had to find someone to help her hide the truth from me for all these years. It had to be someone close. Someone who could step in, get in the way, if things ever went south. Someone who could do her dirty work without getting caught.

  “Luther,” I say. “Don’t.”

  Braithwaite doesn’t let me turn Luther’s head. She pushes harder: “How do you want this to be, Addie? Maybe I should tell the chief about where you go at night. What you do. About all the people who have died because you can’t control your urges and lead the consequences home with you. Maybe I should tell everyone about what you did to your father.”

  Luther takes in a sharp breath. “No,” she says. “I’m done. Chief, I tried. I swear I tried.” She looks at me with a heartbreaking mixture of defiance and regret, then fires the gun. Banderas’s face blooms with red as the back of his head splatters onto the fabric of my chair. As I run toward her, she pulls her gun in close, bringing the barrel to her mouth.

  I don’t reach her in time. Her skull obliterated, she crumples to the floor as my fingers grasp uselessly at her jacket. Seething with anger, I train the gun Luther gave me at Braithwaite, then Micah, both of whom have started toward the door, or toward my dead deputy. It doesn’t matter which anymore.