by Trent Reedy
“I tried so hard to protect him,” Sparrow sobbed into my chest. “They did … The things they did to me …” She sat up and looked at me with wide eyes. “But I never broke, Danny. I didn’t tell them anything. I protected him.” The tears came again. “And for what?”
I squeezed Sparrow close. “We’re safe now, Shawna. Luchen wanted you to be safe.” I turned to the others. “Where are we going?”
“Freedom Lake,” Lee said.
“You sure you know how to get there?” I asked.
“Giant watery lake of water?” Lee ran his hand back through his graying hair. “The one I take off and land on a thousand times every summer? Yeah, I think I got it.”
Sparrow leaned away from me, resting her head on the wall of the cabin.
JoBell smiled at me sadly. “I’m so glad you’re …” She frowned. “We’ve got company!”
I looked out the back window. An Apache attack helicopter was closing in on us. “Go, Mr. Brooks! Floor it!”
“It’s not a car, Danny. I have her throttled up. JoBell, call the recovery teams. Tell them we’re going to recovery two. Tell them we’re gonna need help!”
JoBell keyed the mike. “All recovery teams, all recovery teams. This is pickup. We’re going to recovery two. An attack helicopter is following us.”
“It’s on our six,” Cal said. “You’re supposed to say ‘on our six.’ ”
“Shut up, Cal!” JoBell said. “Recovery teams, how copy? Over.”
“Pickup, this is recovery two. We’re ready. Rolling Runway is in motion. You’re go with the plan. We got you covered. Over.”
“There’s only one way I know to pick up speed.” Lee pushed the yoke forward and the plane slid into a dive. We hurtled toward Freedom Lake.
I tensed up in my seat. It felt like we were coming in too sharp. The seaplane always came down at a nice gentle angle when landing with tourists in the summer.
“You got this, boss,” Cal said.
Lee said nothing. He banked the plane hard to the right as red-hot blips of tracer fire flew by on our left, splashing into the water below. He pulled back on the yoke and kept us in the air only a few feet above the lake. “River’s over there.” He guided the plane over the river, right up the valley created by the blur of trees on either side of us. We flew by the Abandoned Highway of Love, coming up on the steel trusses of Party Bridge.
“Oh shit,” Lee said as he dipped the plane.
I flew forward in my seat belt as we touched down briefly on the surface of the river. Water sprayed out to either side of us while we shot under the bridge, then Lee pulled up and the plane climbed again. I looked out the back window as two pickups rolled out onto the bridge. About half a dozen people in the back of each truck opened fire with at least four .50-cal machine guns and two AT4 rocket launchers.
But they weren’t shooting at us. Sparks lit up the hull of the Apache, and smoke began spraying from one of its engines. It spun sideways and then seemed to try to turn away before its power gave out. It crashed hard into the river fifty yards shy of the bridge, bursting into flames.
“They got it!” I said. “Back to the lake?”
“The Fed is going to be all over the lake,” Cal said. “We have a different plan.”
“On snow?” I asked.
“Just enjoy the ride, Danny,” Lee said. “And pray.”
Brooks brought the plane out over Highway 41. “There it is,” he said. “Right on time.” A big pickup pulling a flatbed trailer rolled along on the road below. Lee eased back on the red throttle lever, and I felt the plane lose a little power. He brought the aircraft down. Sweat ran down his face.
“Cross wire,” JoBell said.
“Shit,” said Lee. He pushed the yoke forward and ducked the plane under the wires. The floats had to be inches from the pavement. Good thing there was a ban on driving, I thought. Oncoming traffic would really mess this up.
Lee pulled up just a few feet. The truck and trailer in front of us braked, so that we came up right over the trailer. “Gotta match the truck’s speed exactly,” he said quietly. “Then we can drop it on the trailer and kill the engine. Ready with those chains, boys.” A few moments passed. “I’m going to put it down. Hold on. Jesus, please,” he whispered.
“Amen,” said JoBell.
Lee pushed the yoke forward and the plane dropped, bumping a little hard on the trailer. He pulled the throttle lever all the way down and killed the engine.
“Slow down, slow down!” JoBell shouted over the radio.
Sweeney and TJ hurried to open the back doors, climbing down onto the trailer.
“What are you doing?” I called to them, hugging myself against the blast of cold air from the open door. I hated being an outsider to the plan. Everyone knew what to do but me. TJ and Sweeney hooked up some chains to hold the floats down, cranking them tight with a ratchet. Once they climbed back into the plane, the truck turned off the main highway onto a paved county road, then onto a dirt lane back into the woods.
Lee Brooks relaxed in his seat and wiped his sweaty forehead. “I’ve never tried that before. Just saw some videos about it online once.”
Cal slapped his arm. “Relax, boss. You did it. It’s over. We made it.”
I looked at Sparrow, curled up in her corner, trying to hide from the world.
“Not all of us,” she said.
Before the truck that hauled our plane stopped, I was already losing the battle to keep my eyes open. My head felt like it was moving even when it wasn’t moving. I woke up enough to climb down out of the plane onto the trailer. Someone draped a scratchy but warm wool Army blanket over my shoulders, and I quickly took in my surroundings.
The truck had pulled into a big pole barn. A kitchen setup occupied the end of the building opposite the big bay door. A row of six double bunks ran along one side wall with a cast-iron wood furnace in the middle. A black T-shirt with the emblem of my bleeding fist and the words WE WILL GIVE YOU A WAR hung on the wall above the furnace. On the other side of the truck was a huge green cannon. Several pallets were stacked high with what had to be stolen ammunition. On the wall opposite the bunks, a big rack stored rifles, shotguns, and handguns of various kinds. Above that, hanging in the center of the wall up by the ceiling, was an enormous black flag with the simple silhouette of a white eagle in the center.
“What is this place?” I said. “Who are all these people?” Now that I thought about it, there was no way the attack on the ski lodge base had been carried out by my group alone. Again I had my doubts about whether any of this was real.
Four men, each with different rifles slung over their shoulders, got out of the pickup that had pulled us here. They smiled and clapped. “It’s good to see you again, Mr. Wright,” one of the men said. “It was a real honor to help get you out of there. Name’s Jake Rickingson — don’t know if you remember me.” We shook hands and he smiled. “Mr. Crow told me you might not like talking about this, and I’m sorry if it bothers you, but you’ve really been an inspiration to us all. The way you’ve stood up to the Fed since all this began— it showed us that anything is possible. Gave us the chance we been waiting for.” He finally stopped shaking my hand and took a step back, still grinning.
“Mr. Crow?” I asked. “Sheriff Nathan Crow?”
JoBell slipped her arm around me, and I jumped at her touch. “A lot’s happened while you’ve been away, Danny.”
“What day is it?” I asked.
Sweeney looked up from the comm he’d been tapping and swiping away on. How did he get his comm working again? “Dude, it’s March 15.”
“What?” March 15? I leaned back against the trailer and stared down at my dirty bare feet. The Feds caught us on … what? February 25? Maybe the day after? It was hard to tell in that hiding place. I looked up at the others. “The bartender! Sally. She sold us out! Don’t trust her.”
A big bearded man nodded. “Don’t worry about that.”
“March 15,” I whispered. “I o
nly slept …” I had no idea how long Alsovar had let me sleep. “Maybe a few hours. Maybe only minutes.” JoBell squeezed me closer. I turned to face her. “What is this place? Where’s Becca? Sergeant Kemp?”
“You have a lot of questions, Danny.” Nathan Crow smiled as he came around the back of the trailer. “Jake, why don’t you and the men work on mission recovery? Help the wounded, clean the weapons, and increase the guard at the perimeter just in case someone was followed.”
“You got it,” Jake said. Lee Brooks shook my hand and patted Cal on the back before he left the building with Jake and the other men. Only Crow, Sweeney, Cal, JoBell, TJ, and me were left, plus Sparrow, who was still in the back of the plane.
Crow shook my hand. “I’m glad to see you again, Danny, but truthfully, you don’t look so good. I have no idea what the Fed did to you, but you’ve obviously had a rough time.” He sat down on the trailer and patted a spot next to him. When I sat down, he went on, “I know you must be tired, but we have a lot to do and not much time to do it.”
“Mr. Crow,” said JoBell. “He’s been awake for like nineteen days straight. Maybe he can get a little sleep before we start on everything else?”
“They’ve had you awake this whole time?” Crow said.
I looked at him, gripping the edge of the trailer. “Had me chained to a chair. Kept shocking me. Kept asking me questions.” I sat up straight. “I didn’t tell ’em nothing. Kept everybody safe.”
“I’m sorry,” Crow said. “I can’t imagine what you must have just gone through. Thanks for holding out. Yeah, everything else will have to wait. You want to eat first? Get a shower? Or would you rather —”
“I want to sleep,” I said. “Please. Can’t even think.”
Crow stood up. “There’s a little house next to this barn. I can set you up in a nice quiet bedroom in there. How’d that be?”
“That sounds great,” I said.
“I’ll get Sparrow,” Sweeney said, heading back toward the trailer. I stared down at my feet.
A few seconds later we heard a scream. “Don’t touch me!” Sparrow shouted.
Sweeney stepped out of the plane and shrugged. “All I did was tell her she could get some rest, that she’s safe here.”
JoBell stood up. “You want me to talk to her?”
“Naw,” I said. “I got this.” I climbed up on the trailer and into the plane. “Hey, Sparrow?” I said quietly. “Shawna?”
She turned and looked at me, tears in her eyes. “It should have been me,” she said. “He was wrong. I wasn’t worth him dying for. How’s that a fair trade?”
“I don’t think it works like that.” I sat down next to her.
“It should,” she said. “I should have died in that hellhole and Luchen, that dopey … He should still be alive.”
“I get how you feel,” I said. “But he wanted you to live. That’s what he chose. So you have to take care of yourself. For him, you know?”
“I’m so tired, Danny. So dirty. What they did …” Tears ran down her cheeks. “I couldn’t stop it. I wasn’t strong enough.” She leaned over and put her arms around me, crying on my chest. “I should have been stronger. Smarter. I shouldn’t have let them capture us. I should have made our group choose a different target. Made us find a better place to hide after the bombing. Wright, what am I gonna do?”
“By the numbers, Specialist.” I struggled to focus, talking as much to myself as to her. “One step at a time. We’ll drink some water. We’ll sleep. Make ourselves mission-capable again. There’s this house next door. We can sleep there.”
“I don’t think I have … that I can … even make it there,” she whispered.
“Neither do I,” I said. “Come on. We’ll make it together.”
Me and Sparrow climbed down out of the plane and off the trailer. With our arms draped over each other’s shoulders, we slowly followed Crow toward a door in the back of the barn. Cal reached out a hand to help Sparrow, but she pulled away from him. Me and her made our painful barefoot walk through the snow across a clearing in a grove of evergreens to a little house nearby.
Crow gave Sparrow the queen-sized bed in the master bedroom, and I had a smaller bed in a side room. I was out probably five minutes after I hit the mattress, but woke again a few minutes later as Sparrow crawled into bed next to me. She was asleep before I had the chance to ask what she was doing, but I didn’t really need to ask. We lay there back-to-back, protecting each other even in our sleep.
* * *
My gas mask was malfunctioning. I couldn’t pull a full breath, and water kept going up my nose. The mob of people around the capitol building in Boise had all taken up the chant, screaming, “Tell us the names of the insurgents! Where’s the insurgent base? Where are they hiding?!” Major Alsovar pushed through the crowd, flanked by Captain Peterson and Staff Sergeant Kirklin. They started shooting at me, and I returned fire. Kirklin dropped dead again, but Alsovar and Peterson got away.
Luchen stood near me, holding a little green M81 detonator rigged to a barbed wire bomb. His voice came from a speaker somewhere. “This is Private First Class Luchen. Out.” The barbed wire bomb leveled the crowd, but somehow my armor saved me. I took off my cracked, useless gas mask and could finally breathe. I walked out among all the dead. The redheaded protestor girl from the Battle of Boise. Kirklin. So many Feds I’d shot in and around Freedom Lake. Body parts everywhere.
Someone grabbed my arm from behind. I swung my fist around to take him out. “Aaaaaaaaaaarrgh! Get off me! I won’t tell you shit!”
“Danny! Danny, it’s me. It’s JoBell. You’re okay. Danny, you’re safe now. It was all a nightmare. You were having a bad dream.”
I was lying in a bed in a dark room. JoBell stood beside me, holding her hands out in front of her. My body was covered with a sheen of sweat and my head spun. “Where am I?” I said.
“We’re safe in the Brotherhood compound,” JoBell said. “You looked like you were having such a bad nightmare, I had to wake you up.”
Someone groaned and shifted position in bed next to me. Sparrow, with her hair all buzzed off, fluffed her pillow and settled back down. I looked from JoBell to Sparrow and back again. Had something just happened with the three of us, but I was too out of it to remember? No, I decided. I would have remembered that. Plus, Sparrow only slept here by me because she was freaked out. They might have messed her up even more than they did me.
I rubbed my hand over my face and looked around my bed for a knife or a gun. This was the first night I’d slept unarmed in a very long time. I must have been completely fried if I could have gone to sleep while so vulnerable. “Yeah, don’t wake me up out of a nightmare again,” I said to JoBell. “Or else poke me with a stick or something. I could have hurt you.” She looked scared, so I reached out and squeezed her hand. “It’s good to see you,” I said quietly. “I thought I’d never … I guess I didn’t do such a great job of getting out of the war.”
JoBell sat on the side of the bed and ran her fingers back through my hair again and again. I closed my eyes and soaked in the warmth of her touch. “I hate this war,” she whispered. “But when you were overdue for checking in, and we figured out you’d probably been captured …”
She leaned over me and put her head on my chest. I wrapped my arms around her and breathed deep. If only the world would go away, leave us alone, and let me hold her here like this forever.
“I thought I’d die, Danny. I thought I’d lost you. I had to join the fight— TJ too — especially after we found out you were still alive, that they had you in that cell. I was freaked. We all were. Becca would hardly eat or sleep.” I looked sharply at her when she mentioned Becca. What did JoBell know? She looked up, smiled, and squeezed me. “I’m so glad to have you back.”
“Don’t you dare start messing around on the bed right next to me,” Sparrow said flatly.
JoBell laughed and sat up. “Oh my gosh, I thought you were asleep,” she whispered. “Sorry.”
“No, no,” I said. “You’re settled in here. Stay.” I threw the covers off, turned, and sat up with my feet on the floor. “We’ll go.” JoBell and I stood, but before I could take one step, Sparrow grabbed my wrist and locked eyes with me. “Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll be right in the next room.” JoBell picked up the M4 that she’d leaned against the wall, and I took it from her to show Sparrow. “We got you covered.”
Sparrow frowned and flipped over to face away from us. “I don’t care where you go.” She pulled the blanket up over her head.
“What time is it?” I asked JoBell when we’d reached the big main room of the house. Everything was dark outside. “How long have I been out?”
She checked her comm. “It’s 3:17 in the morning. You’ve been asleep for about fifteen hours.”
“I’ve never slept so deep. I hardly even dreamed for once.”
“Well, you should sleep some more. Unless you’re hungry. Dr. Strauss said something about your electrolytes or potassium or something being all out of alignment.”
I went into the kitchen. Under the dim light above the stove, a big steel pot of coffee steamed on the burner. “Dr. Strauss?”
“Major Dr. Strauss of the Idaho Army. President Montaine sent him up here to make sure you and Sparrow are okay and to help with the wounded.”
I pulled a paper coffee cup from a plastic sleeve and ladled a drink for myself. My group had been in contact with President Montaine? A lot had changed in nineteen days. Now I was completely out of touch. The coffee burned my hand, and I had to slide a second cup around the first for insulation.
“You okay, Danny?” JoBell said as I walked silently to the living room window, looking out into the dark.
“Maybe this window should be boarded up.” I shook my head. I couldn’t even look out a window without worrying about being shot. Always on guard and ready for a fight. Always expecting to die. That was life now. “I didn’t want this for you,” I said. “The war, I mean. I thought I did. Or maybe I wanted you to accept me being in it. But you deserve something better than this, JoBell. And we’d agreed to get out.”