Southlands

by D. J. Molles

  Thompson fidgeted in the driver’s seat. Seemed concerned about something. “You’re not really gonna just let ‘em go? We can’t have those psychos hanging out in our backyard.”

  Tex turned his head, and though Lee couldn’t see his eyes through his sunglasses, he could tell by the set of his face that he was not happy with Thompson. “Well, maybe now ain’t the time to talk about that, huh?”

  Thompson seemed to remember himself.

  Lee watched as the corporal’s eyes shot up to the rearview mirror, connected with Lee’s, then went back to the road. Thompson didn’t say anything else after that. He seemed to have said enough.

  Tex stared at his driver for another few beats, and then, with a tiny shake of his head, he looked out the window at the passing countryside of the Texas plains.

  In the back seat, Lee and Abe exchanged an uncertain look.

  ***

  Major John Bellamy was walking a tightrope and he knew it.

  Well…figuratively, anyway.

  Literally, he was walking on a sidewalk in Greeley, Colorado, heading back to the Hampton Inn & Suites. The hotel had been taken over years ago to house and provide offices to the hundreds of executive military staff based in the Greeley Green Zone, and had thus earned itself the nickname FOB Hampton.

  Bellamy had an office up in that hotel.

  And President Briggs—Acting President Briggs, though no one around here dared breathe that out loud—had taken the penthouse.

  But where Bellamy was heading was Colonel Lineberger’s office.

  Colonel Lineberger was something like President Briggs’s secretary of defense. He was in charge of every military element now under the control of President Briggs, including Major Bellamy himself. And Bellamy was on the way to hand him a bold-faced lie.

  This was the proverbial tightrope.

  His first foray out onto this tightrope had been when he’d agreed to keep in secret contact with Captain Lehy, thereby betraying Briggs. But he’d merely been dabbling on the edges—not really committed to the balancing act he now found himself in.

  When he’d provided Tex with the information about Lee needing his help at the Nuevas Fronteras fuel cache in Alabama, he’d taken a few, wobbly, baby steps out, and his nerves had started to jangle inside of him. But, ultimately, that had no effect on Greeley, and so it was highly unlikely that anyone from Greeley would start wondering how Tex had known to be in Alabama at such a fortuitous time for Lee Harden.

  Then Bellamy had provided Tex with the information on the final fuel convoy from Nuevas Fronteras to Greeley.

  And now that convoy was three hours late.

  Now it did effect Greeley. Which meant people were going to start wondering how Tex’s people knew where and when to be to take down that convoy. And Bellamy was acutely aware that the trail would lead directly back to him.

  His recourse now was to act innocent and disturbed by this news, and to obfuscate his trail as much as possible.

  But acting was not one of Bellamy’s natural talents. He was an operator, not a double-agent. He been trained as a warfighter, not a spy.

  Guess you better learn quick.

  He entered the front of the hotel. Two soldiers in ACUs were posted guard. They knew him well from his comings and goings, but checked his pass anyways, saluting him and wishing him a good morning.

  Bellamy grunted a response and tossed them back a halfhearted salute.

  He walked through the lobby and passed the elevators. He took a sidelong glance at his dim reflection on the brass doors. He wore MultiCam—or OCP, if you wanted to get technical. He spied the little golden oak leaf patch on his chest. It made him feel like he wore a costume rather than a uniform.

  He took deep breaths, but the nerves still jangled inside his stomach. He’d been having some acid reflux, and he felt it burning at the bottom of his throat. But his hands were steady, and he thought that he looked relaxed enough.

  He turned into one of the conference rooms that had been repurposed into offices. Mostly cubicle walls like in any open-air office building. But in the corners they’d constructed rooms out of plywood to give the higher ranking officers some privacy. Bellamy had one himself.

  Even two years since they’d been built, they still made the entire area smell like a lumber mill.

  At the far back corner, Bellamy stopped outside of Colonel Lineberger’s office. The door was open. He peered inside, but no one was there.

  Shit. Now he had to track the colonel down to lie to him?

  “You looking for Lineberger?”

  Bellamy turned and found Mr. Daniels standing there with a cup of coffee and a slight smile, which seemed to be his default expression. Like he always knew something that you didn’t and found your ignorance amusing.

  He was freshly shaven, as always. Golden hair parted neatly on the side, as always.

  Daniels’s office was directly adjacent to Lineberger’s, but Daniels wasn’t military. He was the CEO of Cornerstone, a military contracting company that President Briggs had a vested interest in back in the day when he’d been Senator Briggs. Daniels and Briggs were close friends, and they had slowly but surely edged out the military in favor of Cornerstone operatives in several key areas of the Greeley Green Zone.

  It seemed that Briggs trusted his mercenaries far more than he trusted his military.

  Maybe he’s not wrong for that.

  Bellamy didn’t try to hide his lack of enthusiasm for Mr. Daniels. “Yes. I’m looking for the colonel.”

  Daniels took a sip of coffee. Eyed the empty office. “He’s not in right now.”

  “It appears that way.” Civility was sometimes a struggle for Bellamy. “Do you know when he gets back?”

  Daniels shrugged. “I can pass on a message if you’d like.”

  Bellamy shook his head. “No. I was instructed to report directly to him.”

  Daniels didn’t seem to care. He eyed Bellamy with that knowing look of his.

  Bellamy was about to disengage and walk away.

  “It’s about the fuel convoy, huh?”

  The acid in Bellamy’s stomach churned, rising.

  This fucking prick.

  “I’m supposed to report to Lineberger.”

  “Yeah-yeah. Secret squirrel. I get it.” Daniels arched an eyebrow. “They’re late.”

  Bellamy didn’t answer. It appeared that Daniels already knew.

  “What do you think happened to them?”

  Bellamy didn’t care at all for the way that Daniels had said it. The way he’d said it, it wasn’t a question. It was an accusation.

  Or was he just being paranoid?

  For a brief moment that felt like a glaringly long time, Bellamy found himself mentally stumbling about for what to reply. It seemed that every set of words that flitted through his brain as a possible answer was rife with guilt. Like if he said one goddamned word, it would give him away.

  Bellamy felt the small of his back begin to sweat.

  “Who told you that?” Bellamy managed it with an authoritative scowl, that felt fake on his face.

  Daniels shrugged again. “People talk.” He took another sip of coffee. “Anyways. I’ll let him know you were looking for him.” Daniels’s mouth turned up into a smile, but his eyes remained locked on Bellamy in that same accusing way. “See you around, major.”

  And Daniels walked off.

  Bellamy watched him go, his gut roiling.

  He knows something.

  Or was that just what Daniels wanted him to think? Was he playing games? Or did he actually know something? And who the hell had he heard it from?

  All good questions.

  What Bellamy knew for sure was that he was out in the middle of that tightrope for sure now. And his balance was getting wobbly.

  ***

  Angela took a midday break.

  She needed it.

  She’d planned to work straight through. But, as much as she hated to admit it to herself, the disagreement with
Carl had…shaken her up. Not because she felt that Carl would ever do anything to hurt her. No, it hadn’t been him looming over her desk that had given her a feeble feeling in her gut.

  But the entire interaction had made her wonder: How much control did she have in this place? Or was it all an illusion? Was she really the puppet that Elsie Foster claimed her to be?

  Well…sometimes Elsie claimed that Angela was a puppet. Other times she was the puppet master. It depended on whichever narrative fit Elsie’s most recent round of attacks.

  So, in this troubled state of mind, she thought a visit with her daughter might do her some good. It was a short walk from the Soldier Support Center to the Medical Center across the street.

  Walking down from her office with Kurt, her bodyguard, leading the way, her jaw began to ache and only then did she realize that her teeth were clenched. She forced herself to relax.

  At the bottom level, Angela stopped and turned to Kurt, before he could open the stairwell door that led to the lobby of the Soldier Support Center. “Kurt, can I ask you a favor?”

  “Of course,” Kurt said, hand halfway to the doorknob, hesitating.

  Angela’s eyes flicked over his face. “Can you let me walk by myself?”

  He looked at her like she’d asked to remove his balls with scissors. But he didn’t say anything, at least for a moment. His mouth compressed down into a piano-wire line, and then twitched a few times.

  “Ms. Houston, the gunshot wound in your side isn’t even completely healed from the last time they tried to kill you. And you ask me if you can walk by yourself?”

  Angela pointed to the pistol which had taken up residence on her hip. A new accompaniment since the assassination attempt. Or…since she got out of the hospital after the assassination attempt. “Kurt, I have this. I know how to use it. I’m actually pretty good.”

  Kurt must have felt like he was losing ground, because horror flashed across his face. “Nine millimeter is not going to do you a lot of good when they peg you in the face from five hundred yards!” He swallowed. Appeared to regret his outburst. “Sorry. But this is a terrible idea, ma’am.”

  Angela sighed. “Terrible for me or terrible for you?”

  “Both.”

  Angela rested a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll be fine, Kurt. I promise.”

  “You can’t make that promise,” Kurt growled at her, but she was already pulling the door open.

  “Well, I’m gonna make it anyways,” she quipped. “Because if they peg me in the face from five hundred yards then at least I won’t have to hear about it from you.”

  Kurt followed her through the door. “I’m extremely uncomfortable with this.”

  “I know.”

  “I want the record to show that I advised you against this.”

  Angela cast a quizzical glance around her. “What record, Kurt? No one’s taking a record.”

  “You know what I meant.”

  “I need to be alone for a few minutes.”

  “Why not be alone in your office?”

  “Because then you’re hovering outside my door. I want to be alone and walking.”

  “Not safe.”

  “Duly noted.”

  Kurt issued something like a groan. Or he might’ve been cursing her out without moving his mouth. Angela couldn’t tell which. But he seemed to have run out of objections to make.

  Angela gave him a smile, because he was very sweet, if not a little obsessive. “Thank you, Kurt. If I’m not back in an hour, I’m probably dead on the sidewalk.”

  “Not funny,” he said, dead serious. “Not something to joke about.”

  But Angela had already gone through the front doors of the Support Center, with a wave over her shoulder.

  The sunlight struck her.

  The warmth.

  The light glinting off of windows.

  It took everything she had to maintain her flippant body language, despite the fact that her insides went to soup, and her legs turned into rubber bands. She walked across the parking lot, straight towards the school a few hundred yards away, with her heart pounding.

  She moved out of the glare of the light coming off the school’s windows, and she saw that they were all closed, that there were no rifle-barrels protruding from them, or from a shadowy figure on the rooftop.

  She couldn’t even call herself paranoid anymore, because it had happened.

  So she told herself they wouldn’t try anything at this stage in the game. She told herself that she was armed. She told herself that they’d posted extra guards at the public buildings so that people like the guy that had shot her couldn’t set something up like that again.

  And she also told herself that, in all likelihood, Kurt was going to follow her at a discreet distance.

  And that was fine. Even the appearance of being alone felt like she’d been cut free of ropes that had been constricting her chest for days on end.

  Even the fear that she felt was better.

  She wasn’t cut out for this. She couldn’t handle all the attention, all the time. When she walked down the street with a bodyguard, she felt like everyone’s eyes were on her, judging her, sneering at her. She was set apart. Spotlighted. Observed. Scrutinized. And those that sat in judgement were not impressed.

  But…

  When she walked alone?

  She felt like just another person.

  Or at least, it was easier for her to pretend that.

  She was relieved to walk through the doors of the hospital. But more than that, she was relieved that she was walking through the doors alone. Without bodyguards, she felt like she could slip in quietly through the door and past the triage station, to the room where her daughter was stationed.

  When she opened the door, she found Abby sitting up in bed, with a book in her hand that was probably above her reading level. Marie sat on the chair next to the bed, also with a tattered paperback. They both set the books down as Angela came in the room.

  “Mommy!” Abby greeted her. Her excitement level for seeing her mother had skyrocketed with her being sequestered to a hospital room. Angela felt a twinge of guilt for enjoying that.

  “Hey, Sweetie,” Angela said, moving to the bed and hugging her daughter with both arms. “Whatcha reading?”

  “I dunno,” Abby admitted. She turned the cover over with a frown. “It’s like…some kids…on a train or something. I don’t get it.”

  “Boxcar Kids,” Marie said, with a nostalgic smile. “I used to love those as a kid.” She looked up at Angela, her sharp eyes evaluating her friend. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” Angela replied, completely unconvincing. “How about we see if we can’t get some lunch for the kiddo. You hungry, Abby?”

  “Sure.”

  Marie rose from her seat, dog-earring her page in her book and laying the book behind her. “You just keep reading that book, Abby. I promise it’ll make sense if you keep trying.”

  Abby looked dubious, but picked up the book again.

  Angela and Marie exited the room. In order to get food, they’d first have to find a nurse. There wasn’t a hospital cafeteria anymore. They were lucky just to have a few nurses and a couple doctors, and enough medical equipment to keep people alive. For now.

  What they were going to do when those supplies started running out was just one more thing that circled the back of Angela’s mind, incessantly demanding attention that she couldn’t give it. There were more urgent matters at hand.

  “You hear Carl’s back in town?” Angela asked.

  Marie nodded. “I did. Is that what’s got you so edgy?”

  “Do I seem edgy?”

  “Yeah, you do.”

  “Hm. Well, you’re right.”

  “What happened?” Marie’s tone was reserved.

  “We had a bit of a disagreement,” Angela sighed. Then she related most of what had happened in her office, sanitized and truncated for public consumption.

  When Angela finished, they had stopped wa
lking and now stood halfway down a long hall with no doors or windows or offices near them. The hall was empty. They were alone.

  Marie looked troubled. “That’s not good, Angela.”

  “What part?”

  Marie’s gaze hit hers, sharp as a tack. “You don’t want to alienate Carl Gilliard. For that matter, you don’t want to alienate the military.”

  Angela felt a little miffed that Marie wasn’t taking her side. “If I let them dictate everything to me then I become the puppet that everyone already thinks I am! And this becomes a military dictatorship, and then I’m just the dumb-blonde-bitch-figurehead.” Angela snorted. “On the upside, maybe they’ll stop trying to kill me.”

  Marie smiled, but only with half her mouth. Her eyes still looked concerned. “Angela, I’m not saying you did the wrong thing.”

  Angela’s fleeting humor left her. “It kind of feels like you are.”

  Marie shook her head. “No, I’m just saying…shit. I don’t even know what I’m saying. Tread carefully?”

  “You think Carl’s in the right?” Angela tried not to bristle, and only half-succeeded. “You think we should just turn this into a police state? Lock every suspect up? Waterboard them? Throw them in work camps?”

  Marie raised a sardonic eyebrow. “Well…free labor sounds pretty good.”

  “Stop it.”

  Marie grew serious again. “Okay. Here’s what I’m saying, Angela. You are right for wanting this to be civil. And Carl’s right for recognizing that it’s not.” She held up a hand, because Angela looked like she was going to start arguing again. “And if you were to ask me my opinion—which I’m assuming is the reason you’re talking to me right now—then I’d tell you that the right answer probably lies somewhere in the middle.”

  Angela frowned. “What does that even look like?”

  “Do what Carl is telling you to do. But make him be very discreet about it. Then deny everything.”

  Angela was already shaking her head before Marie finished. “No way. I’m not playing those games.” Her voice dropped down to a harsh whisper. “We’re at the cusp of a straight-up shooting war with Greeley, Colorado for doing exactly what you’re talking about doing.”