It went downhill fast. Jones pushed into the middle of them, snatching up fistfuls of Johnson’s shirt. Marie grabbed the arm that Johnson was rearing back to punch Jones with. Pickell shouted something, then grabbed onto them, maybe trying to pry them apart, but the next thing Sam knew, they were all on the ground.
There were no more words after that. Just grunts and snarls. Fingernails gouged across skin. Elbows mushed across faces. Knees landed on ribs.
Johnson was fighting like a wild animal. Sam had the single errant thought: Where was this much piss and vinegar before?
Pickell ended with Johnson in a rear-naked choke, but he wasn’t sinking it hard, just trying to control him. Jones had the man’s arms—he was kneeling on one, and had both hands on the other. Marie had straddled his thighs, keeping his legs from thrashing.
Sam realized he had his knife in his hand.
And that was when someone finally spoke.
It was Sam.
He got Johnson’s attention with the tip of the knife blade, held just under his nose. “Johnson. Hey. Johnson.” Sam was panting. Heart exploding. “I don’t want to do this. I had to kill Frenchie. You hear me? I had to do it. I didn’t want to. And I don’t want to hurt you either. But you listen to me real fucking good, okay, you sonofabitch? I’ve got a fucking mission. Lee trusted me, and I promised him that I would get it done. And I’m telling you this right now, Johnson, I hope you’re fucking listening because I can’t be any goddamn clearer: If you endanger my mission, I will fucking slit your throat.”
Something in those words must’ve made it through to Johnson. Or maybe he’d simply burned himself out. Maybe reason had reasserted itself. Sometimes the exhaustion that hits you in the middle of a fight can do that. You start to wonder what the hell you were fighting about in the first place.
Whatever it was, Johnson stilled. Stopped thrashing.
They existed in a little cloud of hot, stinking breath. Body odors. The humidity of sweat. So close. So intimate. Ready to kill each other at a moment’s notice. God, how had they gotten to this point? Who the hell were they?
Sam had to grip the knife harder to disguise a sudden tremor. “Are you gonna be cool, Johnson? Can you be cool with me?”
Despite Pickell’s choke hold, Johnson managed a nod. His eyes weren’t even taking in the knife under his nose. He was locked into Sam. Defiant. It made the nod of agreement seem like a lie.
But what are you gonna do? If someone says they’re going to be cool…
Don’t trust anyone.
Sam started shaking his head, feeling like it was falling to pieces, tiny chunks of his skull just breaking away, and taking his brain with them. He swallowed hard, found his mouth dry. “Johnson. This isn’t a fucking joke. I’m not fucking around. You need to promise me. Promise me right now that you’re not going to do anything to endanger my mission.”
Johnson started to nod again.
Sam cut him off with a snarl: “Say it! Goddammit! I need to hear you say it out of your mouth!”
Pickell eased up on the choke, so that Johnson could work his jaw easier.
Johnson sucked in a big breath. The hardness and anger fled from his eyes. He looked like a man on the brink of crumbling. He looked like he had when he’d first learned that Frenchie was dead. Before he’d learned that Sam had killed him.
Sam didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.
“I promise,” Johnson croaked out. Sam couldn’t tell if it was emotion, or strain from the choke. “I promise not to endanger your mission, Sam.”
Everything suddenly hit Sam, like standing under a waterfall and feeling it beat you down. It was the strangest sensation he’d ever felt in his life. As though his brain suddenly lost its ability to filter out the extraneous, and let everything in all at once. He saw himself, huddled there over a man he considered his friend, holding a knife under his nose. He saw their little flat, in a place fully surrounded by the enemy.
The enemy? What was the enemy? And why?
What was he fighting for?
Why was he here? What was he even doing? And why was he threatening to kill this man that he would also die for?
He loved Johnson, and he hated him. He wanted desperately to save his life—would in fact kill himself to save Johnson—and yet in the same moment, he would thoughtlessly slaughter Johnson to save the mission. He felt guilt and righteous anger, and indignation at himself, and rage at the world for thrusting all of this on him, and pride that he was here in the first place, and loathing that it was necessary at all.
Everything all at once.
He gasped. Realized that he had tears in his eyes. And he didn’t care.
Realized that his throat was blocked up, and didn’t care about that either.
He reversed the grip of the knife in his hand, and that simple motion seemed to kickstart his brain into doing its job: filtering information and allowing him to focus on the most pertinent.
With the knife blade now snugged against his wrist, Sam’s hands crept up and took ahold of Johnson’s face, gently, but firmly. His hands shook as he did. He could feel the warmth of Johnson’s skin, the moisture of his sweat. The life within him.
“Don’t make me do it, Johnson,” Sam whispered past the strangling blockage in his throat. “Please. Don’t force me to be something I’m not.”
In that moment, Johnson, more than anything, looked worried for Sam.
Sam’s tunnel vision expanded just enough that he was able to perceive, peripherally, that Pickell and Jones were staring at him too. He could only imagine that Marie was watching him as well. But none of that mattered. All pretenses had been stripped away.
Sam was not a murderer. And yet he would murder. He knew it of himself. He knew he was capable. And he knew he was closer to it now than he’d ever been before. He did not like it, but he was far past self-deception. He’d ripped himself open.
Johnson nodded again. “Okay, Sam. I won’t. I’m…I’m sorry.”
Sam almost choked. Had to turn his head and cough. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, clearing the tears from them. Shame was a distant memory. He looked back. “I’m sorry too.”
TWENTY-ONE
─▬▬▬─
IMPASSE
In the darkness on the side of a midnight road, Lee waited like a spider in a web.
He lay on the top of the MATV, staring up at the sky. He had watched the moon rise, and now saw it, blood red on the horizon. Mars had risen and stood above him, glowering down at him, a mocking god. The Milky Way stretched vast and implacable, uncaring, so far beyond the pitiful human struggles that occupied the lives of those trapped on this dust speck.
Meteors occasionally streaked the sky. In the absence of light, Lee could see the movement of satellites every once in a while. They were still up there, their orbits degrading. Perhaps some of the meteors he saw were those pieces of former technology, plummeting through the atmosphere, no one left on earth to care about the utility they’d once supplied.
Here on earth, all that remained was survival of the fittest. That fertile, hot-blooded concept that civilization fought to bridle. But civilization was gone. Survival was king again, its usurpers dead and gone.
Lee had explained himself to Brinly and Angela. Neither of them had called him paranoid. Such accusations were baseless in this reality. Paranoia was the spirit of survival. Paranoia, and aggression. Kill or be killed.
Beneath him, Angela was sequestered in the armored confines of the vehicle, Abby with her, along with a few Marines to guard her. Brinly was out there, somewhere, in the scrubby flatness. Silently waiting with several squads of trained killers.
Lee’s armor was heavy on his chest. His hands rested on his rifle. He breathed steadily against the downward pressure. In through the nose, hold, out through the mouth, hold. Box breathing to suppress the humanity of his stress.
His legs ached to find a new position, but he kept still. He thought perhaps that Abby was asleep beneath him,
and he did not want to shuffle about on the roof and stir her awake. He had no doubt that Angela was just as wakeful as he.
His earpiece crackled softly. Brinly’s whisper: “You called it, Boss. Got a visual on a crew of ten to fifteen, moving towards your poz.”
Lee didn’t stir. Somehow he managed to be disappointed. How did that work exactly? He didn’t trust anyone, and he usually assumed the worst. And yet when he was proven right, he didn’t feel satisfaction. He felt disgust.
He keyed his comms. “I copy. Any chance it’s Cass coming to talk?”
A pause. “I don’t think so, Lee. Positive count on fourteen. Moving overland, off the road. Armed. Not looking like they’re in it for a talk.”
“How far out?”
“About a mile from you.”
Lee took a heavy breath. How was this going to play out? Well, he supposed it would play out however they chose. He would respond accordingly. “I copy. Keep on them. Let’s give them a chance to do the right thing. The second they present a threat, take them out. I trust your judgement.”
And so he waited. As the stars continued to wheel silently and slowly overhead. And the distance between him and a dozen strangers dwindled.
He never moved. A part of him was curious, and there was enough starlight for him to see by. If he rotated onto his stomach, he could probably see them approaching. But he’d seen it all before. No need to watch it again.
Brinly didn’t narrate anything further, and Lee didn’t allow himself to hope. That was simply unrealistic at this juncture.
There was silence for a time, and then there was gunfire.
It ripped the stillness of the night to shreds, and yet Lee still didn’t move.
It didn’t take long. A rolling peel of thunder, maybe a quarter mile from where the MATV sat. And then silence again.
Lee leaned up into a sitting position. Underneath him, he heard Angela standing, preparing to exit the vehicle. Staring north, Lee saw shapes in the darkness, like ghosts coalescing out of nothing, bleeding into this reality from the landscape where they’d hidden.
The image of unearthliness was broken by the stab of weaponlights. Several bright white beams surrounding a spot to the right of the road. Distance? Maybe three hundred yards? The darkness made his depth perception even worse.
A muzzle flash, followed by the crack of a gunshot. Then two more. The weaponlights winked out, one by one, until only two remained.
“Alright,” Brinly sighed over the comms, his voice no longer lowered. “Confirming fourteen threats eliminated. You’re clear to come in. You see our location?”
One of the weaponlights waggled in the darkness.
“Yeah, I got you,” Lee answered. “We’re on the move.”
Getting down off the roof was harder than going up. Lee mumbled curses at his broken body and gingerly set himself down on the concrete as Angela opened the back hatch and emerged.
“No, you stay here,” she said to Abby. The two Marines inside seemed unsure whether they were supposed to accompany Angela, or babysit the kid.
“I want to go out there,” Abby said, flatly.
Lee tilted his head at her, regarding the girl’s placid expression. She never whined anymore, Lee had noted. That hadn’t always been the case. In the beginning, Lee remembered thinking that the high-pitched whine was just Abby’s default voice.
Not anymore.
Angela was in the process of loading yet more motherly retorts, but Abby calmly slid down out of the vehicle, completely ignoring her mother. “I might as well go with you, Mom. That way the guards can stay with you.”
“But the…” Angela trailed off.
“Bodies?” Abby asked. “I’ll see them eventually anyways.” Now she turned and looked at Lee. “Weren’t you planning to bring them back to Vici as proof?”
Damn, she got sharp.
Lee detected Angela staring at him, though it wasn’t with a question. She knew that was the plan. She was looking for an out. But Lee didn’t have one to give her. He simply shrugged and nodded. Yes, Abby was going to see the bodies regardless.
The five of them strode out into the darkness.
Lee scanned through all that black, wondering what might be out there lurking, but he knew that Brinly’s men would have 360 outward coverage. The land was flat as a griddle. With their NODs, they’d see any primals coming.
“Why you wanna see the bodies anyway?” he asked Abby, glancing down at her. He’d considered saying nothing at all, but it seemed that Abby appreciated bald-faced honesty these days, and that was one thing Lee could provide.
“Curious,” was Abby’s single-word answer.
Lee considered that for a few paces. “It’s not good to be fascinated by death.”
By dim starlight he saw her look at him. “I’m not fascinated by it. I’m curious if they’re the people that left the meeting early.”
“Huh. You noticed that too, then?”
Abby’s silence was answer enough.
They neared the glow created by the two weaponlights. A cluster of Marines stood alongside Brinly. Lee knew that there were many more out in the darkness, unseen. They created a sort of ring around a scattering of bodies.
They’d bunched up, Lee noted. Lack of discipline. Bad tactics. They should have scattered when they started getting shot. They should have tried to assault through the ambush. Instead, they went static and jumbled up together in a panic. That just made them easier to shoot.
Lee stepped into the center of the light, where the greater majority of the bodies lay. A few were on the outskirts. Maybe they’d had half a brain and tried to move and shoot instead of becoming rooted to the ground in an indefensible position.
Many of them were curled up, face down in the dirt. A few were on their backs. That was enough to identify them by. Lee recognized at least two faces from the meeting earlier. He’d been right—as had Abby. These were the people that had left the meeting early.
Brinly stepped up to Lee’s side. “One of them had this.”
Lee looked at the object in Brinly’s hand. He knew it well. The only form of viable long-distance communication that existed anymore: a satellite phone. They were used extensively because all of the Project Hometown bunkers had come equipped with a rack of them.
The United Eastern States had used them. And so did Greeley.
This particular one had received a bullet, straight to the center of it. The shattered exit hole was speckled with bright, arterial blood. They wouldn’t be able to turn it on and see the numbers called, but Lee could make a reasonable assumption.
“You think Cass and the rest of Vici is in on it?” Brinly asked.
Lee shrugged. “It’s possible. Also possible that these were outliers. Maybe Cornerstone got to them somehow. We won’t know until we see what Cass thinks about this. Either they’ll be shocked, or they’ll be disappointed. And that’ll tell me everything I need to know.”
Angela stepped up to them. “Should we call in the rest of our people?”
Lee nodded. “I’m not rolling back into Vici without every gun we have. Just in case.”
“They might take it as a threat.”
“Maybe. But we outnumber them.”
Angela stared at him for a long moment. Lee met her gaze and expected recrimination, but that’s not what he found. Her expression was tired. Humanity worn to thin threads by practicality.
If Vici wanted a fight, they’d get one. And Angela held no illusions about how Lee would conduct that fight. Either they were with Lee, or they were a liability. And Lee was not in the habit of leaving liabilities alive.
Lee found Abby off to the side. One of Angela’s guards stood close by her. She didn’t seem overly concerned with the bodies. She had her hands stuffed into her pants pockets, and no longer looked at the bodies, but instead out into the darkness. Her face held a mild twist of disgust.
That’s a good sign, at least.
At least she wasn’t riveted by the gore.
***
Lee rolled up to the outskirts of Vici, this time not kneeling in the back of a pickup, but standing in it. The rest of the bed was filled with bodies. Another pickup trailed behind, that one also filled with bodies. And all of their convoy followed with him.
Lee looked over the top of the cab as the pickup slowed to a stop in the road, the headlights splashing across the sentries bustling out to meet them, alarmed by this unscheduled visit.
He leaned over to the open driver’s window. “Go ahead and start unloading these bodies. I don’t want them in my trucks. Let Vici figure out what they want to do with them.” He hoisted his bum leg out of the bed first, then squirmed down until his boots touched hardtop.
He strode out to the meet the sentries, the headlights casting his shadow ahead of him, long and black.
An artificial dawn came upon that section of road. Numerous pairs of headlights spreading the glow out, as Humvees and MATVs and all their cobbled-together technicals spread out in a line.
This was no friendly meeting. Not anymore.
“Stop right there!” the sentry ordered, brandishing his rifle.
Lee stopped, but only because he didn’t need to walk any farther. He held up a hand to the sentry, as two more fell in line behind the first. “I’m in no mood to take any orders from you, son,” Lee grunted at the man. Another stranger that he didn’t recognize.
The sentry looked off-balance. His eyes strayed over Lee’s shoulder, and Lee heard the arrhythmic thud of bodies hitting pavement.
“What’s this?” the sentry uttered, trying to sound demanding, but failing miserably. He might not be able to see all the guns trained on them behind those dozens of pairs of headlights, but Lee was pretty sure he got the gist.
“Those?” Lee cast a casual glance over his shoulder. “Those are fourteen dead bodies. Some of your people that came in to try to take me out. Now I want you to listen very carefully before you do anything stupid. I’ve got enough firepower trained on you and your crew to turn them to ground chuck, and enough people to burn Vici to the ground if you so much as twitch in a way that makes me feel hinky.”
Lee Harden Series | Book 5 | Unbowed Page 21