by Warren Ray
Winters mind spun in different directions as he thought about everything she just laid on him. He was aware of some of the things, especially in regards to the men. He didn’t understand why they followed him, but just knew they did. It wasn’t something he dwelt on and had gotten used it. Her perceptiveness of his not wanting to lead was an old issue, or so he thought. How did she even know? Perhaps she knew him better than he knew himself.
He looked into her big brown eyes and admired her forthrightness. She was a gutsy person to be telling him all of this without a care of what his response might be. He could never take the chance of rejection by telling a woman about any feelings toward them.
“I got to say, Reese, I’m a little taken aback by this.”
“You’d rather face a Jiji than deal with this,” she said poking a little fun at him.
“Oh gosh, yes.”
“Yeah, I thought so. Listen, I don’t want to come across as some crazy chick…”
Winters gave her a grimaced look.
Reese laughed. “Okay, fine. I’m a little late on that one, buuut, with that said, why don’t we just leave it alone for now. I just needed to get this off my chest.”
Winters gave her a reassuring smile.
Reese slid across the bench seat, gave him a kiss on the cheek, and then scooted out of the truck. Winters watched her hobble into the hospital on her crutch.
Chapter 25
Washington D.C.
The Washington D.C. morning traffic was at its usual snail’s pace going into the district. Green hated this part of the day and found himself leaving earlier in the afternoon to beat the rush hour traffic home. In many ways, he missed being out in the field leading men in battle. Although since he now knew the truth about the war, he was glad to be here. The poor bastards out west were like lambs to the slaughter.
He was in a much different battle here in the district, one he knew little about, so little in fact, that he almost allowed a nineteen-year-old kid to take him down. It wasn’t the first time he committed a terrible blunder, which almost cost him his life. The first being Reed’s man, Pruitt, who took his mother hostage. Green thought he had played that one right by breaking into the man’s house and stealing his files. What he didn’t realize was the depths of Pruitt’s depravity. His desperate measures of putting a gun to a woman’s head should have taught Green to be more careful, and it had, he just didn’t expect a teenage girl to be his next nemesis. Of course, he had started all of this by bringing his friend, Sam, into the picture to do background checks. Had he not done that or sent Corporal Bassett to Michigan, then Reed would have been more trusting of him, because Pruitt would have reported that nothing was going on.
Green had to hand it to Reed. Using Winters’ daughter had been a good play. He wondered how those two ever got together and why she played ball with Reed. She must believe all the propaganda that is out in the media about Winters and the Shadow Patriots being murdering rapists. Green pitied the kid, but then he didn’t know the full story of their relationship. While he admired Cole Winters actions, he didn’t really know anything about his background. He could have been a terrible father for all he knew. He let out a scoff when he realized just how bad you’d have to be to get your kid to hate you that much. It certainly didn’t fit the little he did know about Winters. Green might not know about Winters’ background but knew how to spot good character and Winters’ actions spoke volumes about his character. Green sighed thinking that she must have a loose screw. Either way, one of them was going to have a bad day.
Green slammed on the brakes as a car cut in front of him. He yelled out and shook his fist. He wondered if he shouldn’t just start getting to work later. It’s not as if he punched a time card. For now, though, he didn’t want to change his habits after he had so recently passed the teen girl test and threw Reed off his scent.
Green pulled into the parking lot and headed to his office. He found the usual stack of papers to go through and sat down wondering how he could get closer to Reed or if it was even necessary. He didn’t want to spook the already paranoid man. He wanted it to be business as usual. It would be interesting to see if Reed treated him any differently now that he’d passed the test.
He put it out of his mind and started going through the stack of messages to catch up on yesterday’s work, which kept him busy until noon. He got up to go to lunch when his secretary, Grace, knocked on the door and walked in.
“Sir, he’s here,” she said.
“Who?”
“Mister Reed.”
Chapter 26
Jackson Michigan
Winters leaned back on the bench seat of the old pickup and stared out the window thinking about Reese, and how both times when she caught a bullet his heart about stopped. He thought it was because he felt like a father to her, but her admissions of love made him rethink this. They did get along famously and understood each other. Was he not being honest with himself and harbored an unconscious attraction to her? But how could someone like her have feelings for him? She was thirty years younger, and besides, beautiful girls never hung out with nerdy bookkeepers.
He stared into the side door mirror trying to find that person but only saw a hard and serious man reflecting back at him. He pulled on his cheek, and let out a scoff realizing he no longer looked like an unsure bookkeeper. He hadn’t really taken notice of the changes before, but he could see them clearly now. Stress did that to a person over time and even though it had been only a few months, the high-level of battle stress must have accelerated the process.
He then thought about Reese’s experiences and how that obviously changed her. She was no longer a young twenty-year old girl, but rather an older soul whose view of life was completely different now. What was important before no longer had the same impact. Silly schoolgirl attitudes had gone out the window in the world they now lived in.
His thoughts moved to Ellie, his deceased wife, whom he had not thought of in a while. A wave of guilt washed over him, but then he remembered how busy he’d been. He let out a happy sigh thinking about her love of life and how she never let anything get her down, not even cancer. He smiled at how she always bounced around and cherished every moment they still had together. He tried to remain strong for her, but she could always see through him and implored him to find another woman to marry. He wondered what she’d be saying about Reese and let out a laugh when he could hear her voice calling him a stud.
He then wondered about Cara and didn’t think she’d be too happy as Reese was only a year older than she was. He rolled his eyes at the thought of Cara going off on him for it. He shook his head and scolded himself for thinking about Cara in the role of an arguer. Why could he not think of her in happier times? He’d been doing it a lot lately and remembered how bad their fights had been. He hoped nostalgia would soon cloud his memories so he could think of her on better terms. Regardless, she was still his daughter and he loved her and would always be loyal to her. He just didn’t hold out hope he’d ever see her again.
Chapter 27
Detroit Michigan
Vatter got to the police station later than usual because of the injuries he’d received from his cousin, Carol. The arm hurt worse than the slice across his cheek, but the cheek will leave a nasty looking scar for everyone to see. It will also be a reminder for the rest of his life of the dark deed he committed.
He should have seen her coming at him, but the pressure he was under had clouded his reflexes. He thought about whether or not he should have killed her but figured he didn’t have a choice in the matter. It’s not as if she would have let him take her girls.
Of course, now he needed to feign concern when his family finds out she’s dead and the girls are gone, especially around his mother because she was close to them. He dreaded having to deal with them. With the exception of his mother, they were all a pain in the butt. They always wanted something from him, be it a favor or to borrow money. He didn’t mind helping, but it never ended, as the
y were quite useless in helping themselves. They became worse when the country took the big dump. There were no more government handouts, which meant you were on your own.
It surprised him to see just how unprepared they were. It wasn’t just his family either—thousands were literally unable to fend for themselves. For those who were not able to make it south before winter, many thousands died during the long cold winter. Crime rose dramatically at first but began to dwindle, as there were fewer people around. The ones still here all scrounged around looking for whatever kind of work was still available in the city. There were a few businesses opened here and there and a lot of them catered to the cops, as they were quite literally the only ones around with a paycheck. This put the cops in a unique position of being the kings of the city. They had the money and the guns. Vatter smiled thinking about that knowing he was the king of kings in Detroit. You could still make money here—you just needed to know where to go to get it. For him, it was Mordulfah, that is if he could just stay alive long enough to reap the rewards.
He walked into the station and noticed everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at him wondering what happened. He walked into his office, shut the door and sat down. He wasn’t prepared to tell anyone about the dark deed he committed, even though he didn’t think anyone would have cared one way or the other.
There was a knock on the door. He decided it would be best to get this over with, so he opened the door, and saw Tannenbaum standing there. The baby-faced cop stared at his face.
“What is it?” asked Vatter.
“What the hell happened to you?”
Vatter ushered him inside, moved back around to his desk, and sat down.
“You cannot hold out on me, man. Did that friggin Mordulfah do this to ya?”
“No, he didn’t.”
“What the hell happened out there then?”
“Besides beheadings?”
“Whoa, serious man?”
Vatter nodded. “The son-of-a-bitch was going to take my head.”
“So, how the hell did you get out of it?”
“I took your advice and went out there bearing gifts.”
Tannenbaum gave a curious look. “What did you bring him?”
“Not what, but who.”
“Then who?”
Vatter hesitated a few moments trying to form an answer. He struggled to get the words out. It was more difficult to admit to it than he thought it would be. “The twins.”
Tannenbaum sat down and leaned back in the chair. “Oh man, that is messed up.”
“Yeah, tell me about it.”
“So, how did you convince your cousin to let you take them?”
“Oh, I had to kill her, which is how I got these,” said Vatter pointing to the bandages.
“Damn, son.”
“It wasn’t pleasant.”
“Man, I can see that, looks like she got you good.”
“No kidding.”
“Ah, it’ll look badass in a year or so. So, he was really gonna to take your head, huh?”
“Oh yeah. I get out there and he’s got ten guys lined up. Each holding a big ass knife and each had someone kneeling in front of him, all except one guy.”
“You must have been crapping your pants.”
“There for a minute I thought I was gonna throw up, but he was stoked about the girls. He even had his doctor patch me up.”
“So, that tenth guy didn’t get to cut off a head?”
“Oh, no. Hakim took my place.”
“That poor bastard. I was wondering why I couldn’t get ahold of him yesterday.”
“So, how did it go last night?” asked Vatter wanting to change the subject.
“Yeah, about that.”
Vatter didn’t like the sound of his voice and knew something had gone wrong. He had received intel yesterday from Posey, his spy in Jackson, that bunches of people were hiding out on the west side of Jackson, including some teen girls. This was too good to pass up and ordered his men to go out last night and round them up. He would have gone with them, but his wounds hurt too much.
“Okay, what the hell happened?” asked Vatter.
“The good news is that we found the ones hiding out and we took them down.”
“And, the bad news?”
“The vans carrying the chicks didn’t come back last night.”
“What do you mean didn’t come back? What happened to them?”
“We’re not sure. We killed all the dudes and captured these girls. We had fifteen girls, and let me tell ya something; they were the sweetest looking things you ever did see. A few were total MILFS, I mean, it was quite a haul. Everything was going perfect, you know, we loaded them up in a couple of vans, assigned an escort, and away they went.”
“And?”
“They never showed up.”
“Did you go out looking for them?”
“Of course, we were out all night and you know, we didn’t see any sign of them.”
“Who was it?”
“Who was what?”
Vatter took a deep breath and tried to control himself. His patience was wearing thin today and he wanted to pull his gun out and shoot Tannenbaum. He thought better of it and settled down. “Our guys, who were they?”
“Oh, it was Carter and his crew.”
Vatter didn’t like the sound of that. He knew Carter to be a thieving bastard from way back in the day. He was greedy and didn’t give a damn about anyone else. Vatter’s mind ran in different directions and started to put the plot together. The greedy bastard must have run off with the women. If they were as hot as Tannenbaum described, then they were worth quite a bit of money to the right buyer. Carter certainly knew the right kind of people that would pay top dollar.
A fledgling sex trade started after the collapse of the country. It operated mostly in the bigger cities south of Michigan, like Toledo. He didn’t know how big it was; only that he wasn’t getting a piece of the action, even though some of the girls came from Michigan. In the early days of the downfall, gangs came across state lines to kidnap girls, but armed citizens confronted them. However, once the war started many men left to go fight leaving the females to take care of the young and the old. This made it easy for the cops to come in like saviors when trouble arose and take them to safety. It had been working pretty well for them and they cleaned out quite a number of towns. It allowed them to take the choicest girls and just kill off the rest, as they weren’t able to feed everyone anyway.
Then word started to get around and people started to leave again. Since the folks in the northern part of the state crossed into Canada, the cops concentrated on southern Michigan. The cops had already cleaned out most of the smaller towns, which were easier to handle.
Because the rebels closed down their party house and took their girls away from them, they were up for anything. So, when Jackson, a much bigger town, came into play, they jumped at the chance because they knew the town to be full of women. They liked Mordulfah’s new strategy and didn’t think they’d have much trouble taking it down.
Vatter didn’t know Mordulfah’s overall plan but figured he planned on taking over the whole state for himself. It made sense and he didn’t really care as long as he could make his money and then leave.
For now, he needed to control the station and the men. He didn’t want any more Carters to be stabbing him in the back, so he needed to blame the rebels in Jackson for what happened last night. He asked Tannenbaum if they saw any of them in the area.
“No, nothing. Nothing at all. I even got word from Posey this morning that he didn’t hear anything about it in town either.”
“Still, we can’t be sure. It just makes more sense that the rebels would have been involved with this.”
“Yeah, but the way we were shooting up the damn place, if they had been around at all, those bleeding hearts would have tried stopping it, you know. Besides, we were literally out in the middle of friggin nowhere.”
Vatter let out
a sigh figuring word was already spreading around the station that Carter and his guys took off with the girls. He just hoped no one else would get any bright ideas to screw him over.
“Do you want us to change our plan for tonight?”
Vatter thought about it and didn’t see any reason not to proceed. He needed to pay the rebels back for making his life so miserable.
Chapter 28
Jackson Michigan
Reese fell back on the bed as both relief and anxiety swept over her. Admitting her feelings for Cole had been a big relief, but now she was worried, he would not respond the same way. She laughed at the silliness of that because a man turning her down was not the worst thing that could happen. She had already experienced the worst thing and couldn’t think of anything crueler for a girl than to endure being a sex slave. Every encounter made you wonder: Was this it? Is this one going to kill me? You were completely under their control and at their mercy. If one of them wasn’t satisfied in whatever sick way they needed, then punishment was doled out until they were satisfied, even if it meant death. Some of the cops would slap and punch her for no apparent reason. She broke out in a smirk at how she got even with two of them today.
Over the ten days, she quickly learned to read each man who came to visit. Some liked her to be docile, and others wanted her to enjoy it, while some wanted her to beg them to stop. She got a crash course in acting and became very good at it. Most of the cops were young and easy to please, as they didn’t seem to have a lot of experience with girls. If they came in alone and were polite, she knew they’d be in and out of there in no time. However, every once in a while she’d get one who liked to be cruel, such as the one she knocked out today. She sensed these were the ones who didn’t get to go to their high school prom or were resentful of pretty girls for blowing off their advances. She was out of their league and they knew it, so some had something to prove and wanted to teach her a lesson. These pathetic losers would take their time and not only try to humiliate her but also smacked her around the most.