Lee Harden Series | Book 5 | Unbowed

by Molles, D. J.

  Marlin gave Wibberley a severe glance, then held up a staying hand to Lee. “That’s an awful big assumption Lieutenant Wibberley just made.”

  Wibberley turned on his partner. “Is it? Explain to me how I’m wrong.”

  But it was Worley that answered. “Donahue doesn’t like Briggs. He was the one that pushed for envoys to be sent to the UES. Before that recommendation, it was just going to be me and Guidry, down to make peace with Greeley and open the channels of communication.”

  Guidry appeared to side with his countryman, Wibberley. “If you think Donahue’s going to charge in on Greeley, you’ve gone batty. That’s an overt act. Donahue might like to do it, but he’s still not in complete control of everything. He’s POC—Point of Contact. The people over his head are playing a fucking political game, and they’re not going to declare war on the United States of America—and like it or not, that’s what Briggs is.”

  “I get that,” Marlin growled. “But what if we managed to get Lee a foothold in Greeley?”

  Lee shifted his weight, the anger not yet abated. “How? How are you going to do that?”

  Marlin slid down off the bed, seeming to prefer being on his feet at that moment. “Look, we can’t make promises. We haven’t even talked with Donahue yet. And Guidry and Wibberley are right—Donahue won’t commit the entire battalion in an overt act of war against Briggs.”

  “Then why are we even having this fucking conversation?”

  Marlin looked at Lee earnestly, face to face now. “He won’t do an overt act. But that means fucking nothing in modern warfare. You know that as well as I do. That battalion is a joint task force, but that means half of it is made up of CAF—soldiers that will do what Donahue says, and do it quietly. We might be able to convince Donahue to commit a few teams—unmarked and unidentified—to infiltrate Greeley.”

  “A few teams isn’t going to swing our chances,” Lee said.

  “I’d disagree,” Marlin shot back. “Greeley’s fucking porous as hell—Guidry and Worley can attest to that. A few teams can sneak in quietly. Secure Sam, and start blowing shit up from inside while we hit from the outside. They could give us an edge. We’d just have to coordinate carefully with them.”

  “Out of the question,” Lee suddenly snapped.

  Marlin looked surprised, then pissed. “Out of the question? Hey, beggars can’t be choosers, Lee.”

  Lee pointed a finger in Marlin’s face. “I’m not fucking hanging my entire operation on the chance that some colonel I don’t know is going to come through for me. You remember Colonel Freeman from Florida? You remember how he fucked us over at the worst possible moment?”

  “Donahue is not Freeman,” Marlin said.

  Lee shook his head. “I don’t trust him. I can’t trust him. Trusting people is what got our shit pushed in in Butler.”

  Marlin looked genuinely confused. “You’re not being reasonable.”

  “Lee.” Angela’s voice.

  Lee stared at Marlin, feeling everything whirling inside of him, and the sound of it moving was the distant scream of tinnitus, growing, building.

  All he could picture was Freeman’s convoy, pushing into the gates of Butler. All he could hear past the ringing in his ears was the memory of the radio transmissions, telling him that Freeman’s people were firing on Lee’s troops.

  I can’t let that happen again. I won’t let that happen again.

  Don’t. Fucking. Trust. Anyone.

  A hand on his shoulder.

  He jerked, looked into Angela’s clear blue eyes. His brow wrinkled in confusion, eye going to her lips, which were moving with words he couldn’t hear. He blinked, shook his head slightly, trying to clear it. His hand went to his temple, finger in his ear, as though trying to pluck the tinnitus out.

  “Hang on,” Lee said, thickly. “Gimme a minute.”

  Dammit dammit dammit.

  He turned away, unable to look at any of them.

  You’re not being reasonable.

  He realized he was drifting away from them. The visual of floating back towards the convoy. When he glanced down, he was surprised to see his feet moving.

  You’re not being reasonable because you’ve lost your fucking mind.

  Screeching. Screaming. All encompassing.

  Was that tinnitus, or was it the memory of the screams over the radio as his men and women were gunned down by someone he’d thought was there to help them?

  The MATV. Dead ahead.

  Faces, like mannequins at store fronts, expressionless, watching him from a distance.

  He could feel his chest heaving for air, but couldn’t hear his own breath.

  What the hell is wrong with me?

  Was this what dissociation felt like?

  Was this what going insane felt like?

  All reality was a thin veneer. Lee felt like he could reach out a hand and poke his finger through it, exposing it for the fake that it was. Just a fragile screen beyond which there was only white light and nothingness.

  He found himself at the side of the MATV, hands posted on the metal. Warm from sitting in the sun, but not yet hot. It grounded him. He pressed against it, as though testing his theory that it wasn’t real, but found the steel solid. Tangible. Immovable.

  “Lee?”

  He heard it. Crisp and clear sound.

  He blinked again. The screaming in his ears was gone all at once, like storm winds that suddenly die into absolute, preternatural stillness. The eye of a hurricane. A tiny respite in the midst of disaster.

  He twisted to the sound of the voice, not yet recognizing it until he laid his eyes on the speaker.

  Abby stood there at the back end of the MATV, looking at him. Guileless. Earnest. Curious. A bit concerned.

  “Hey, Abby,” Lee croaked.

  Why had the tinnitus vanished so quickly? Why did everything suddenly feel real again?

  Abby stepped towards him, but her eyes strayed past him. Towards the Humvee and the collection of people there. Lee could feel them watching him, though he didn’t turn to look.

  “What’s wrong?” Abby asked.

  Lee dragged his hands off the side of the MATV. They hung limp at his sides, fingers trembling. It was wrong of him to do, but he was suddenly sucked into Abby, unable to rip his eyes from her. It was wrong, because he was AN ADULT and DIDN’T NEED ANYBODY and she was JUST A CHILD. But she was very real. More real than anyone back at the Humvee.

  Abby raised her eyebrows. An expression so much like her mother’s. “You don’t look so good.”

  “I don’t feel so good.”

  Abby nodded. Commiserating. “So what happened?”

  “The Canadians want me to trust a friend of theirs.” Jesus, was he actually talking to her about this shit? But she was so there at that moment, like she was the only objective party in the world. The words came out of him, released by some broken levee inside. “They say he’ll help us invade Greeley. But I don’t know him. They want me to risk everything. But what if he screws us over? What if he betrays us like everyone else has?”

  “Oh.” Abby frowned. Looked out to where her mother was. Then back to Lee. “Why are you so scared?”

  “I’m not scared,” Lee said. Knee-jerk response. He cringed at it. Shook his head. “Okay, that was a lie. I’m terrified.”

  “Yeah.” Abby didn’t seem surprised at all. “I think everyone’s scared.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But why?”

  “Because I’m afraid of losing everyone.”

  “But it sounds like they’re trying to help.”

  “Maybe they are. But they don’t know if this friend of theirs will actually come through for them. And if he doesn’t then everyone’s going to get killed.”

  “What about Sam?”

  Lee clenched his jaw.

  Abby continued to watch him. Still so neutral. Like none of this actually affected her. Was she as scared as everyone else? It didn’t seem like it. Lee didn’t know what she had, but he
wanted some of it.

  “So…” Abby picked at her fingernails. “If you don’t trust their friend, will that mean that we win and everyone lives?”

  “No.”

  “What if you trust him? Will we win then?”

  “Maybe.”

  Abby looked a little confused. Pondered her fingernails for a moment. Chose to bite a cuticle off. Spat it out. “Well. I always like ‘maybe’ more than just plain old ‘no.’”

  Lee sniffed. Tore his eye off the girl. All those faces watching him. Standing outside of their trucks and cars and vans and SUVs. Uniforms. Camouflage. Plaid shirts. Civilian clothes. Rifles slung on chests and backs. Pistols on hips. Waiting. Wondering.

  Lee put his back to the MATV and leaned against it. His eye wandered along until it found Angela. And Brinly. And Abe. Also watching him. Waiting for him. Wondering what he was going to do.

  “Abby,” Lee said, glancing at her. “Why are you talking to me now?”

  She frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean…” He fought for the right words, and again, found himself just being flat-out honest. “I killed your dad. You hated me. For years, you would barely even talk to me. You were afraid of me.”

  She didn’t seem inclined to object.

  Lee gestured to his face. “I thought that when I got my face shredded…”

  “You thought I’d be even more scared of you?”

  He nodded. “So why all the sudden are you not afraid of me anymore?”

  She tilted her head, inspecting him boldly, eyes ranging across his scarred face. “I guess…I guess you never seemed human before.”

  Lee chuffed at the brutal frankness. “I’ve always been me.”

  “Yeah, I know. But now? You seem…realer. Before, you were just so hard. And now you seem…”

  “Weak.”

  “No.” She crossed her arms, thoughtfully. “Not weak. Just…vulnerable.”

  Lee squinted at her. “That’s a big word for an eleven-year-old.”

  A smile. “I read it in a book.” She turned and leaned her back up against the MATV, mirroring Lee’s pose. “So I guess that’s why you seem realer to me. And that’s why I’m not afraid of you anymore.”

  Lee puzzled over that for a few moments. Over how that made him feel. On the one hand, it hurt some source of pride in him, that an eleven-year-old was no longer scared of him—what kind of a fragile piece of damaged goods did he seem like now? But at the same instant…why would he want a child to be afraid of him?

  “Can I ask you a question now?” Abby said.

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “Why do you keep doing this?”

  Who are you, Lee Harden?

  Lee found himself at the precipice of realization. And he couldn’t tell if he even wanted to know anymore. But the thoughts kept coming. Demanding to be figured out, like a riddle that piques your curiosity.

  What’s at your core? What motivates you to do the things you do?

  Lee gritted his teeth, hissed air through them. “Abby, I’m not even sure I know.”

  “Hm.” Abby fidgeted, looking out towards the Humvee where Angela and Brinly and Abe still stood. Lee followed her gaze and watched them watching him. Angela in particular, looking at him, looking at her daughter. Like she didn’t understand why they were standing there, speaking together, thick as thieves.

  The thoughts kept on circling, like Abby’s question had stirred a whirlpool in his brain, and it was all funneling down towards that secretive center of him that he’d never quite puzzled out. Closer and closer to touching the truth.

  “Hoo-boy,” Lee muttered.

  “Yeah,” Abby agreed.

  “Abby?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m gonna call Sam. You wanna talk to him?”

  “Yes.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  ─▬▬▬─

  THE MESSAGE

  Sam sat on the desk in the dark inner office of the building. He held the pistol in one hand, the satphone in the other, pressed to his ear. “Lee?”

  “It’s me.” Abby’s voice. She didn’t need to say so. Sam recognized it instantly.

  And everything went very still inside of him. All the roiling tension and second-guessing and thoughts of his imminent death, inching closer to him. He stared at the pistol, the dull black frame of it, the anodized black slide. The imagery of placing that shot into Gabriella played on a loop in his brain, but his mind turned away from it at the sound of Abby’s voice.

  “Abby, is something wrong? Is Lee there?”

  “Yeah. He’s right here with me. I just wanted to talk to you.”

  Sam wasn’t sure what he felt in that moment. Any semblance of guilt that he might have felt for executing Gabriella…well, that had never even shown up. If he’d had it in him in the first place, it had been covered up with a crust of rage, thinking about Johnson and Pickell, dead and dying. Because of her.

  No, he didn’t feel guilty at what he’d done. But he did feel surprised.

  He pictured himself in that moment, very different from what he now was. He pictured himself from years ago, in a very similar position, huddled beneath the roots of a downed tree, with a pistol given to him by Lee that he had no idea how to use outside of “point it at the bad guy and pull the trigger.” Terrified of the possibility that that might happen, that he might be forced to do it. Terrified of the sounds of death and screaming and gunshots in the distance as Lee destroyed the people that had destroyed his father.

  Terrified that he would never have the guts to do what needed to be done.

  That version of him was gone. Dead. He wasn’t afraid of it anymore. He wasn’t afraid of it poisoning him now.

  Somehow, Abby had become linked to that childlike version of him. He’d met her so soon after his world had crumbled, and they’d been close, all through the formation of Camp Ryder. Two kids just trying to survive. And there was a time when he’d been scared to be around Abby, or Angela, for fear that they would drag him back in time to that worthless little kid that was frightened of everything.

  Now, hearing Abby’s voice, he found a smile on his lips. Wan, and lacking joy—it’s very difficult to feel joy when you think the end is so close. But he wasn’t afraid anymore. Abby couldn’t drag him back in time to that other version of himself, because it was dead.

  Sam had grown up. And Abby had too.

  “Well,” Sam said, his voice a little thick. “What did you want to talk about?”

  “I didn’t really have anything to talk about,” Abby said. Her voice was calm. Frank. “I just wanted to hear your voice and tell you that I love you. You know. Like a big brother.”

  Sam coughed out a dry chuckle. “Yeah, I know, Abby. And I love you too. Like a little sister.”

  A single shush of breath over the line. Almost like Abby was relieved.

  “Okay. I guess that’s it,” she said. “Lee wants to talk to you.”

  “Okay, Abby. Be good.”

  “I will.”

  Shuffling.

  Lee’s voice: “Sam. How you holding up?”

  The smile fled from Sam’s face. “We lost Pickell last night. But…”

  He looked at the pistol in his hand, half expecting it to tremble in his grip. But it was still. Everything in him was still. Quiet.

  “But what?” Lee asked.

  “We took down the people that betrayed us,” Sam said, keeping it short and sweet. “I wanted to send a message. The people that were willing to rebel, they got cold feet. I wanted to give them something to have faith in. So we killed the people that tried to kill us, and we left a message.”

  “You left a message?” Concern. “What do you mean?”

  Sam gritted his teeth together. “Don’t be pissed.”

  “Sam…”

  “They needed to know that they’re not alone. They needed to know that someone’s going to have their back if they stand up and fight. I know that you wanted to keep the operation a secret to
the last minute, but Greeley already knows, Lee. They know what you’re planning.”

  “Christ, Sam. What’d you say?”

  “We left papers on the bodies. And Marie wrote it on some walls, down near where the conscripts are housed.” Sam took a deep breath, knowing that he had, in some way, betrayed Lee’s trust, but also knowing that he hadn’t had an option. He’d done what needed to be done. “We told them ‘Lee is coming.’”

  A long, uncomfortable silence. Long enough for Sam to feel a seed of doubt begin to sprout, ugly and black inside of him. Had he ruined things by sending that message? It hadn’t been a thoughtless decision—he’d pondered it before doing it. It had felt, in the moment, like the only thing he could do to bolster support inside of Greeley. But Lee’s silence was nerve-wracking.

  Sam’s fingers ached from clutching the satphone so hard. He forced himself to relax. A new concern flitted through his mind on insect wings. “You are coming, aren’t you?”

  “We lost a lot of support,” Lee replied, quietly. “Greeley has an army down south of us. Same fuckers that took over Butler. They’ve been on our asses the whole time. They burned through some of the settlements that sided with us, and the people we got to support us lost faith and cut and run.”

  Suddenly, the fears came crashing back into Sam. Not the old fears of his old self. The new ones. Being stuck behind enemy lines. All alone. No one coming. It set his heart to racing again like it had when Gabriella had stepped out of her house.

  “Lee,” Sam said, his voice a little shaky. “I made promises to people. I trusted you. And they need to trust you too. Please tell me that you’re still coming.”

  “It’s a long shot, Sam. Do you understand that? We have half the manpower we thought we’d have. Even if everything went the way I’d planned, even if those settlements were still backing us, it still would have been long odds.”

  “Lee, it’s always been long odds. We knew that. Every person you spoke to on that road when we evacuated Butler—they knew it was long odds too. And they had faith in you. They still have faith in you now. Remember what you said. Remember what you promised them, Lee. You promised them a fucking fight. You promised them you’d take it Greeley. Bloody but unbowed. That’s the only reason they came with you. Because they’re fighters. And fighters don’t give a fuck about the odds.”