The McClane Apocalypse Book Ten

by Kate Morris

  “Yes, but they do have a new community up there at Fort Knox. Whether we want to acknowledge it as its own, new country or not, that’s basically what it is. They’ve left the new President to form their own country.”

  “But the general has said many times that he doesn’t want to be the President. I just don’t get the same impression from Parker.”

  “Explain,” she demands softly.

  “The last time Cory went up there, he basically said Parker was a jerk, he’s controlling, he acts like he’s running the show, a lot of the people don’t like him. Others fear him.”

  She urges him to continue.

  “If he’s planning on being the new President, then he needs to get your father out of the way- which may happen anyway because of his health. Oh, sorry! Crap, Reagan, I didn’t mean that. It was crude of me.”

  “No, it’s fine,” she says with an expression of forgiveness. “I know he’s sick.”

  “Yes, but that was insensitive of me. Forgive me,” he says quietly.

  “Already forgiven, Simon,” she says. “Now, tell me more on this theory you’ve got.”

  “What if Parker is planning on taking over Fort Knox when, I mean if, your father passes away?” he throws out.

  Reagan thinks about this for a few moments before answering. “Yeah, maybe. But my father has other men in place for such a position, too. Men and a few women he also trusts. Not just Parker.”

  “If he is starting secret files, files your father doesn’t even know about, then he’s planning something or already has something planned. People don’t just randomly start appointing citizens to made-up posts in a made-up government if they weren’t actually going to act on it.”

  “And Parker’s proven himself untrustworthy at the most, and strange at the very least,” she comments.

  “True,” he agrees.

  “But it doesn’t mean he’s involved with the highwaymen, or was,” she argues. “And we still don’t know who the hell this Angelica woman is, either.”

  “Not sure,” he says. “I just had this eerie feeling the whole time I was at Fort Knox that I was being observed from afar. Probably stupid but there it is, nonetheless.”

  “That’s creepy,” Reagan admits.

  He nods and continues, “Yes, it was. I might’ve just been jumpy because I was almost caught stealing those red files. That was amateur hour right there.”

  Reagan chuckles softly so as not to awaken anyone still asleep. “I still can’t believe you dropped a file and he found it. You are one lucky bastard, Simon.”

  His smile conveys his own realized sense of mortality. “No doubt.”

  “I still wish you would’ve figured out who Angelica is while you were up there. We really need to know because she’s our leak, our connection to the President and where he is right now.”

  “I know,” he says and hangs his head a bit. “It’s frustrating. I tried to check with as many of the people there that we know for sure are trustworthy, but I just didn’t come up with anything. It’s weird. That and the feeling of being watched. I just can’t put my finger on it. Ever feel like you’re on the cusp of figuring something out, but it’s just out of reach?”

  “Yes, it’s called parenthood,” she quips, getting a smile. Then she adds, “But I know what you mean. I feel like that a lot when I’m working on something in medicine like researching a disease or a cure for illnesses like Small Pox or Scarlet Fever, all without the benefit of modern medicine, science, and the breakthroughs we used to have.”

  He nods with understanding. “I know what you mean. That is frustrating. It’s a lot more advanced up there at the fort, though. They’re making even more advancements every day. Dr. Avery and her team are doing a lot of great things.”

  “Hm, Dr. Avery, huh?” Reagan teases. Then has to come right out and say what she’s thinking because Simon gives her a blank stare. “The same Dr. Avery who has a crush on you?”

  “Oh, that,” he answers uncomfortably. “Right.”

  “Right? You know?”

  He nods and squirms in his seat. “Yes, I…I figured it out.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing,” he says with finality. “She’s just a very smart, talented doctor, who I respect and am happy to have the opportunity to work alongside. That’s all.”

  “I don’t think she feels that way about you.”

  “No, I don’t think so, either, but I don’t have those kinds of feelings for her.”

  “Oh, well,” Reagan says and moves on. “And did you ask her about Angelica?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he answers. “She didn’t know anything.”

  “She’s a blonde,” Reagan says, considering if Dr. Eliza Avery could be Angelica.

  “No, it’s not her,” he responds to her quizzical expression. “I’m sure of it. She’s not going to go against what they’ve set up there already. Before she made her way to the bunker with her group of fellow survivors, her life out west was hard. In a way, she survived the same way my sister did. She’s grateful for the fort and for your father. She talks very highly of him and often.”

  “Hm, that’s good, I suppose,” she agrees. “I still just want to know who the car dealer and the senator were working with and who this woman is. It’s irritating me not knowing. What if she’s the mastermind behind all of this and not the highwaymen or their leaders?”

  “True again,” he says with a nod. “I was speaking with Paige last night. She said that not a whole lot of progress was made with the car dealer since I left?”

  She shakes her head and says, “No, I’m sorry to say that she’s right. We’re kind of hoping that maybe he’ll recognize Parker as a co-conspirator if Sam is able to draw him.”

  “Her light was on most of the night, so I bet she stayed up working on it,” Simon informs her.

  “Oh, really?” Reagan drawls out with open suspicion. “Sounds like you were keeping tabs on her.”

  “Maybe,” he admits sheepishly, a slow pink staining his cheeks. “I just noticed her light on.”

  “You should’ve been in bed getting some rest not stalking Miss Sam.”

  He just shrugs. “Not stalking, just keeping an eye on her. I feel…I feel like when she’s not with her uncle she’s my responsibility. I know. That’s weird. Definitely isn’t warranted, but there it is.”

  Reagan nods knowingly. “I get it. This love shit is hard, huh? I don’t care how old you are, it’s tough.”

  Simon laughs aloud and nods. “Yes, ma’am, it is.”

  “Having any luck on that front?”

  His laugh fades as does his smile. “No, I’m afraid not. I told her how I feel like you told me to, but we were interrupted at the reception.”

  “But you told her you love her, Simon?” Reagan asks to which he nods. “That’s good. At least you got that part out.”

  “There’s still so much more I need to tell Sam,” he says. “Stuff that I need her to understand.”

  “You’d better make your move then,” she warns as she pulls her shirt back up and shifts Charlotte to her shoulder. “Sam’s a beautiful girl. There are plenty of men in line to take your place. Especially Henry.”

  This causes him to scowl. “I know. And I can’t blame them, either. I don’t have any hold on her, and everyone knows it.”

  “Then stake your claim, Simon. Don’t wait for the perfect opportunity or that exact, romantic moment. Just finish talking to her and see if she reciprocates your feelings.”

  He takes a big breath and holds it before expelling it again. “I’m pretty sure she hates me, Reagan.”

  She chuckles. “After what you’ve put her through, I would, too, bud.”

  He nods with an understanding frown.

  “I know,” Reagan says, sympathizing with him. “Like I said before, this shit’s hard.”

  “Perhaps I should be looking for relationship books in your grandfather’s study instead of history,” he quips.

  Reagan snorts. “F
at lot of good that would do. The experts,” she says using air quotes, “who wrote those books were probably single. Anyway, I think I’m gonna’ get a quick run in before everyone’s up. Kelly’s still on duty. I’ll force him to go with me. He’s getting fat anyway.” This is a joke, of course. Kelly is just as fit as he ever was, maybe even moreso right now.

  He smiles and nods. “Want me to take her for you?”

  “That’d be great,” she admits and hands Charlotte over to him.

  “Look at you, Miss Charlie,” he says to her baby. “Getting so big, aren’t you?”

  Reagan rolls her eyes. Her daughter is bound to be a spoiled brat. An overprotected, rotten spoiled brat, too. She touches the top of Simon’s head, getting a smile in return, and goes to the mudroom to collect her running shoes. It doesn’t take long to find her brother-in-law. He’s sneaking a smoke down by the barn with two of Dave’s men.

  “Let’s see how strong those lungs are this morning, Hulk,” she teases, backhands the center of his chest, and inclines her head over her shoulder toward the running path.

  He mumbles something about ‘a pain in my ass’ under his breath, to which Reagan laughs gaily. She loves annoying Kelly.

  She manages to run the whole path this time and only has to stop when they make it back to the descending trail down to the cow barn.

  “Doing ok, Little Doc?” Kelly asks and pulls up to a stop.

  “Yeah, out of shape is all,” she replies with a laugh.

  “Nah, you’re doin’ great,” he praises and walks beside her.

  Reagan pauses before commenting, “I’m glad everyone’s back on the farm again.”

  “Yeah, for now,” Kelly says.

  “What do you mean? Is someone going out again?”

  He gives a one-shoulder shrug and says, “John and I are thinking about doing some recon missions to see if we missed something out there.”

  “Like what?”

  “We have to have missed something. It doesn’t add up. We got the highwaymen, decimated them basically. But here we are. Feels like we’re back to square one. The car dealer ain’t talkin’ and won’t cooperate. We know there is more to this than we’ve figured out. We’ve got squat. We need to wrap this shit up and be done with it.”

  She sighs heavily and nods. “I agree. I’m sick of this looming over our heads. I want these people gone for good. The President, his people, this asshole in our milk house, all of them.”

  “Me, too, Little Doc,” he says.

  They walk the rest of the way in silence, mostly because both of them are thinking the same thoughts. No words are necessary between them, none at all. They are worried about the family.

  Chapter Seven

  Cory

  “Take another look, asshole,” Cory instructs the car dealer while pushing Sam’s sketch into his line of sight. The man looks away.

  “I don’t know. He…he doesn’t look familiar.”

  He’s lying. Cory knows it, and so do Simon and John, who are also in the room with him. Sam gave them the drawing, a perfect rendering of Parker even down to his pale white crew cut. She’d used just enough colored pencils or whatever she’d used to apply color to the sketch to convey the steely ice blue of his eyes. She somehow managed to capture their coldness, as well. Cory hadn’t thought she’d spent much time in his company, but perhaps it was more than he knew. Either way, Sam obviously did not receive a good impression of the man. He knows his wife also detests and distrusts Parker. Cory hopes they do not need to meet with him again or have him at the farm for an extended stay. He liked some of his men, but Parker always rubbed him wrong.

  “Now for some reason, I just don’t believe you,” Cory says in dramatic fashion. The car dealer’s eyes spark with a flicker of familiar recognition when they first showed him Sam’s sketch.

  “I’m not lying. I don’t know him.”

  Again, this is not believable in the least. “We know you’ve met with them. Angelica and the new President. We want to know if this guy was ever at those meetings. We have every reason to suspect the man in this picture is involved somehow. How is he involved? Who is he?”

  The car dealer’s gaze jumps to Cory as if he’s confused. This is believable, his confusion. But Cory isn’t sure what about his line of questioning is the odd part.

  “I’m not saying anything else,” the car dealer responds finally.

  “Not saying…?” Cory repeats and cuts himself off with a hoarse chuckle. “Dude, you’re shitting me, right?”

  “I’m done.”

  Cory turns to look at John, who nods over his shoulder, and they retreat from the room.

  “He knows him,” Cory states as soon as they are in the hallway of the cow barn.

  “Yeah, he sure does,” John agrees with a sharp nod as Derek and Kelly join them.

  “He says he isn’t talkin’ to us anymore,” Cory tells them. “He recognized Parker. We could tell.”

  Derek nods knowingly as if he figured this was coming and leans on his cane. For his leg alone, Cory wants to kill the car dealer. These highwaymen, and their leader who is currently their prisoner, are pieces of shit not worth the dirt on Derek’s shoe. Cory does not feel satisfied in the revenge he got at the Cheekwood mansion that night. This isn’t over. They still need to figure out if Parker is involved, who Angelica is, and where the hell this new President is hiding out. He has to be in the area if he was meeting with the highwaymen or the senator.

  “Starve him out a few days,” Derek orders. “He’ll talk soon enough.”

  “If not?” John asks.

  “We’ll waterboard him,” Derek says calmly.

  It’s a nasty business, one that Cory has helped administer a time or two when tracking down the cohorts of evil men. It is, however, an effective tool against their enemy. Feeling like you’re going to drown is not pleasant.

  “Got it,” John says with a nod and looks at Cory and Simon and gets the same response. “Nobody in or out.”

  “Yes, sir,” Simon answers for them.

  Cory goes in and removes the man’s jug of drinking water, smirks at his dismay, and leaves again to join the others.

  “Cor, take the Professor and head into town with the others for the clinic day,” John orders. “We’re wasting time here right now with this idiot. We’ll let him go a few days without chow and see what he has to say about that drawing.”

  Derek jumps in to say, “And if Parker turns up in town or here, use caution. We’re not sure what we’re dealing with yet.”

  “Yes, sir,” Cory answers.

  “Kelly will come to town tonight after the clinic closes,” Derek states. “You and Simon will go with Kelly and meet up with a convoy from Dave’s camp.”

  “What’s the mission, boss?” Cory asks.

  “Run up to Coopertown,” he answers. “Check in with our friends there. We’re looking for anything anyone might know about Angelica. She may not be inside Fort Knox, after all.”

  “Got it,” he answers.

  “If you get time, check in with the new village west of Coopertown. We need to nail down some of these loose ends. Parker’s out there doing who knows what, and we still don’t know who Angelica is.”

  John breaks in to say, “And we need to know if the new President is in the area. We’ve got mixed reviews on that one. Some are saying he’s here already. Some are saying he’s on the way. Who knows?”

  Kelly adds, “If he’s here already, then he’s gonna need a big place to break camp if he brought an army like General McClane thinks he’s gonna bring.”

  “That’s probably true,” John agrees. “Robert said he could and probably would come with thousands. If he does, he’ll need water, shelter, and a place to camp safely.”

  Derek interjects, “And he’d want to be somewhat close to us. He’ll want intel. He’ll want to run spy missions on the general and his people. It won’t take long to figure out that Robert’s at Fort Knox.”

  “Right, it’s the bes
t place for either of them to set up a permanent camp,” Kelly observes.

  John punches his shoulder. “Better get to work, bro. Sounds like you’ve got a long night ahead of you.”

  Cory’s brother just rolls his eyes with a huff. “Nothin’ new there.”

  “Same shit. Different day,” Derek notes.

  “Same shit. Different world,” Cory corrects, getting a chuckle from a few of them. His brother doesn’t laugh. Cory understands why. Now he has a wife and a child, too, just like Kelly. The responsibility of taking care of them is a weight he’s glad, thankful to shoulder. It’s just a lot to think about, their constant safety, the imminent threats from the outside world. He’ll be glad to put this whole situation behind them, but he’s also glad that Paige is a survivor, that she already had to be one to make it. At least Tessa and the others will benefit from her survival skills if something were to happen and they got split up, or the farm was attacked.

  They leave for town less than an hour later with Reagan, Samantha, and Simon in tow. He parks and leaves them at the clinic to get it opened and ready for patients, a few who are waiting eagerly on the front porch. Sam’s uncle is also waiting for them. Then, Cory helps out around town all day working on wall repairs, checking in on his friends from the armory in Ohio, and running errands for his buddy, Mrs. Browning, their librarian. He helps her newly fostered son- care of a highwaymen attack on his parents and the caravan they were travelling with- install their storm windows in the small house she owns in town. He is surprised actually to find that this wasn’t already taken care of for her. Unfortunately, the ball got dropped because they’ve all been so busy and preoccupied with the highwaymen. Then he splits a load of firewood for her and helps her foster son, Nate, carry it to the basement where the wood-burning stove is located. Nate is a good kid, mature for a twelve-year-old, and is eternally grateful for the roof over his head. Cory is sure that with time and the love he knows Mrs. B will show him he’ll come around and learn to be happy again. He heads out again and runs into Kelly parking their truck in front of the clinic. The sun has almost set, and he’s anxious to be gone from town and on the hunt again.