“If he does,” Duncan said, drawing the words out, “give him that phone of yours and tell him to call the number stored under 2 in the speed dial.”
After a moment of silence, Dregan said, “There is only one number stored in this phone.”
“In a second there will be two.” There was a rustling of paper on the other end. “Ya there?”
“Yes.”
“You have something to write with?”
“One moment.”
Roughly thirty miles away, Duncan heard Dregan put the handset down. Muffled by distance, he heard what sounded like drawers being opened and then soft cursing filtered over the connection. A few seconds ensued and there was a prolonged bout of coughing. It was loud and phlegm-addled. Someone hawked and spit and then the accented voice was back. “Go on.”
After rattling off a string of numbers that began with a Colorado area code, Duncan said, “Program that into your phone. If the Judge comes to you with his panties in a wad, don’t say a thing. Just power that bad boy on, find that number on speed dial, and give the old boy the handset.”
“Then what? Who will be on the other end?”
“Just sit back and watch hilarity ensue as our robed friend gets taken down a peg or two.”
There was another prolonged coughing fit on Dregan’s end. Finally he asked, “By whom?” The question was followed by a steady wheezing.
“The President herself,” Duncan answered, a happy tone to his voice.
Stunned silence on the other end.
“You okay, friend?”
“No. I am not,” Dregan conceded flatly.
“Take your time and compose yourself. Because as farfetched as it sounds … I’m not blowing smoke up your ass.”
After a few wet, laughter-infused rasps, Dregan said, “The cancer isn’t down there. I suspect it is in the lungs.”
Grimacing at his choice of words, and not sure what to say after the sudden revelation, Duncan simply changed the subject. As if the big “C” had never been broached, he said, “Cade has the President’s ear. You did the right thing the other day. And since then everything we’ve seen leads us … and in a roundabout way, President Clay, to believe Bear River would be better served as it was founded—with you running the show and men whom you appoint handling security. So long as you leave interpreting the rule of law as it is in the books to the Judge, everything should run smoothly. At least as smooth as a damn near frontier town can considering the circumstances.”
“When he gets over the bug that’s going around here, I’ll deputize my boy, Greg. We have no doctors or medicine strong enough to beat back what’s going around, let alone what I have. Eventually I will succumb to this.” He swallowed hard. “Gregory will carry on for me.”
Seeing as how Gregory was the son who had been bitten and consequently saved by Raven’s dose of antiserum, Duncan didn’t think it kosher to ask for particulars concerning the bug.
After a short silence, Dregan added, “We’ll be fair, as always.”
“That’s what Cade figured you’d say. He’s a pretty good judge of character.”
“Judge,” Dregan said and began laughing. “I shall do my best.”
Duncan cackled at his unintentional funny. Once he’d composed himself, he said, “Call us if you need anything.”
“Your people saved my boy’s life. You may call us if you need anything.”
What we have here is a regular old lovefest, thought Duncan as he agreed to agree with the man. Knowing full well that there was nothing anyone could do to combat the big “C,” even considering the combined six decades of nursing know-how sitting on folding chairs in the nearby clearing, he simply said, “Take care of yourself.”
“Da,” Dregan answered, and the line went dead.
“Everyone is off the hook,” Duncan called out. “The dreaded call has been made.”
“Get off your pity pot and get over here,” Glenda ordered. “I’ve got a crick in my neck from you spooning with me all night.”
Seeing as how Raven had already set the precedent, her small hands kneading the hardened scar tissue between her mom’s shoulders, there was nothing Duncan could do or say to shirk the duty. So, putting his game face on, he stuck his tongue out at a smirking Raven, made a show of cracking his knuckles and, under the watchful gaze of Foley, Seth, and Tran, trudged grudgingly, hand in hand with Glenda, toward the coveted patch of sunny ground in the center of the clearing.
Chapter 19
The watcher was still hunched over and carving on the sill when the growly white pickup truck returned. When she looked up she saw that it was trailing two similar vehicles, both painted black as night. Blood still weeping from the wounds on her hand, she set the knife aside and began to suck hungrily at her fingers. Craning her head fully to the right, she pressed her cheek to the glass and tracked the convoy with her eyes, watching intently as all three vehicles turned left off of 100 and wheeled onto the body shop parking lot. Eyes narrowing, she muttered something unintelligible as the pickups came to a halt parked three abreast, the largest among them on the left and rudely blocking the sidewalk. Then she noted how they were arranged color-wise, the two black trucks bookending the white. Like turkey and Swiss on rye. Or better yet, she thought, her stomach growling loudly, a Double Stuff Oreo cookie. Of which she sometimes still dreamed, and was forbidden from consuming. In fact, all sweets and junk food were off limits to everyone but Adrian, who apparently needed them for the arcane rituals that kept the Purged at bay.
Mother liked rituals.
And sacrifices.
She smiled and breathed deeply. In her head was Mother’s gruff voice again: We all make sacrifices. All for One. One for All.
The truck’s doors opened wide and out spilled four men and three women. A mix of old and young. One black and five Caucasians.
The watcher was still milking the cuts on her hand of salty goodness when the brindle-colored dog emerged from the big black truck.
A thick rope of drool, pink with blood and wholly unexpected, sluiced from the corner of her mouth. She wiped her lips dry with the back of her hand as she watched the looters follow the dog up to the closed door. The dog sat while the looters conferred.
She scooped up her radio and powered it on. Once the initial burst of white noise had subsided, she clicked the Talk key twice and waited.
The wait was short.
“Yes,” came the all-too-familiar voice.
The watcher depressed the Talk key. “They’re back,” she reported.
A one-word order was delivered by the person on the other end. Same strained rasping voice: Observe. Then, every bit abrupt as the delivery, the connection cut out.
She lowered the volume and shoved the radio into her vest pocket. Eyes never leaving the dog, she shrugged on a ratty canvas daypack, and without warning her salivary glands kicked into overdrive and her mouth began to fill again.
So she spat in a corner and focused her attention solely on the looters, who were still in a huddle and conversing animatedly, seemingly oblivious to the pair of Purged shuffling their way.
After a moment’s contemplation, during which the younger girl and the redhead man both seemed to be arguing with the dreadlocked man, the latter of the three turned around and banged on the shop door with a green-handled machete.
Good luck with that, dummy, the watcher thought, drying her lips on her shirt sleeve. The kids already released them … forever. Suddenly, causing her to start visibly, the watcher’s stomach emitted a low, wet rumble that went on for a couple of seconds. Oh how she wanted something to eat. Anything. Hell, she thought, embarrassed the nasty habit hadn’t died with the Purge, a cigarette always numbs the hunger.
So she rattled the last bent Marlboro from the pack, which she wadded up and chucked across the room. When she looked back down the street, the body shop door was wide open and the dreadlocked man was squatting and inspecting the dead things Ratchet had left tethered together inside the shop.
Consider it a warning, Ratchet had muttered as she cleared the stoop of snow so that the door would swing wide enough to allow the inert, cold-affected bodies passage. Like marking our territory, she had added with a mirthless grin as she had gone about doing whatever it was that she did to them prior to setting their leashes and shutting them inside.
The watcher had been real proud of herself that day. The old her would have been begging for details. Nagging Ratchet until she snapped and hit her. It had been that way with her biological dad and grandpa and seemingly every boyfriend she ever had up until Pocatello fell and the ones who hadn’t fled the city became affected by the Purge and came back meaner than ever.
Nope.
Nosiree … she hadn’t even thought to ask Ratchet what she used the scalpels and bone saws and bolt cutters for. Details now were none of her concern. As the title implied, Watchers were supposed to be seen and not heard. Get out of the way and observe. Whenever Mother repeated that mantra, the watcher heard her grandad’s voice: You make a better door than a window, Iris. It was his mantra whenever she stood too close to the old console television, blocking his view of the Lawrence Welk Show or Hee Haw or Live from the Grand Ole Opry.
One day, thought Iris, blocking out the memories of the abuse she had suffered during the previous five decades she now referred to as her old life, I will be trusted to do.
Again Mother’s harsh voice echoed from deep inside Iris’s brain where only she could hear. Do unto others as they would do unto you, it reminded.
When the looters had finally tired of inspecting the fallen Purged, they shoved the bodies back into the gloom, closed the door, and then made their way to the road with the Shepherd in tow and sniffing the air and ground all around. They stopped dead-center in the middle of the road in a loose knot. After half a beat, Iris saw the dreadlocked man step away from the others and stare westward, down the length of the road. Then he spun a slow one-eighty and rejoined the group, where he immediately pointed up the road, seemingly straight at the window her face was mashed against.
She drew back from the light spill and swallowed hard. “No way he could have spotted me up here,” she told herself.
She put her sliced fingers in her mouth and admired her handiwork for a beat.
ADRIAN.
The N is perfect.
She was done.
When she eased forward and peered out the window, the group was a block and a half west of her position and marching up the sidewalk. Head craned to the left, the dreadlocked man was walking and pointing. Was he still focusing on her window? Or was he eyeing the church? From Iris’s vantage, she couldn’t tell. However, the dog was a more immediate threat. It was running free, ears perked and stub tail wagging furiously. Ranging a few yards ahead of the looters, it would stop periodically to sniff the tires of the cars edged up against the far curb before knifing off through the grass growing window-high beside them.
Now marching beside the dreadlocked man was a tanned thirty-something. He was clad head-to-toe in camouflage consisting mostly of dark greens and browns and patterned like trees. The two brunette women walking in the center of the group were also swathed in camouflage. The older wore the same dark woodland theme as the man to her fore, while the tanned and tattooed woman’s garb sported a much tighter pattern made up of lighter shades of tan and green.
Bringing up the rear of the slow-moving cluster was a slim, younger man whose shock of red hair seemed to be trying to escape from under his rumpled, floppy-brimmed camouflage hat. And walking in the redhead’s shadow was a shorter, balding man. He moved like a cat in the company of feral dogs, pensive, eyes darting and head constantly moving, as if on a swivel.
Suddenly the group stopped at the bottom of the church steps. Go. Do it, Iris thought, envisioning herself setting a trap of her own one day. A smile creased her face at the mere thought of graduating from Watcher to Doer.
Then her imaginary house of cards came tumbling down.
Chapter 20
Forward Operating Base Bastion
Mack, Colorado
As soon as Cade heard the words, “Your ride is hot. She’s number four down the flight line” roll off the crew chief’s tongue, he had shouldered his ruck and weapon and hustled past the Rangers and base personnel assembled in the receiving line, the so-called jock bag banging against his hip. In passing he had caught Beeson’s eye and acknowledged the slight nod from the commander with one of his own. With a slight limp evident in his gait, Cade hustled past a pair of Little Bird helicopters and an MH-60 Black Hawk, all undergoing inspection by their respective aircrew.
Once he reached the outer edge of the Ghost Hawk’s rotor wash, he put a hand atop his tactical bump helmet and, ignoring the dangling straps and buckles whipping against his throat, ducked and trudged headlong into the black craft’s buffeting down-blast. Barely five feet from his waiting ride and squinting hard against the fine grit being thrown about by its wildly spinning rotor blades, Cade saw the co-pilot flashing him a thumbs-up and a wide grin. The hulking form behind the welcoming gesture was the same African-American aviator who had co-piloted the craft during the Los Angeles mission some three and a half weeks prior. Before he’d had a chance to return the man’s greeting, the port side door slid open and a second man he recognized from the same mission leaped to the tarmac. In the next beat Cade was being relieved of his rifle and gym bag by the SOAR crew chief and a glove-clad hand of one of the customers inside the helo gripped his and hauled him inside.
As Cade strapped into a port-side seat aft of the crew chief/door gunner whose nametape read Skipper, a sleek black flight helmet was thrust into his lap by his old friend Captain Javier “Lowrider” Lopez.
“Plug it in,” mouthed the stocky, Hispanic Delta Force shooter, pointing to his own helmet and then a nearby jack as if that might somehow expedite Cade’s compliance.
Cade reached over his shoulder and plugged in. As he swung back to face Lopez, he took inventory of the craft’s occupants. Up front in the right-hand seat, visor sparkling with sun glint, was Ari Silver, an exceptional SOAR aviator and obviously the commander of Jedi One-One — assuming that was the name the higher-ups had assigned the ship for this particular mission.
Already strapped in across the aisle from Cade was President Valerie Clay’s former head of security, Adam Cross. With his blond locks, blue eyes, and clean-shaven face, he looked more Malibu surfer boy than the tough-as-nails former Navy SEAL that he was. Cade’s nod was greeted by a smile that exposed a picket of unnaturally white teeth.
Adjusting his well-worn blue ball cap, McP’s Irish Pub emblazoned on it in gold stitching, Cross said, “Captain Grayson, Delta operator emeritus. How’s it hanging, brother?”
Cade flashed a thumbs-up. “Still inhabiting the correct side of the dirt—”
“And possessing a heartbeat and respiration,” finished Ari, his voice able to be heard in everyone’s headsets via the shipwide comms.
Cade cracked a smile. “Jedi driver Ari Silver,” he said. “Thought that was you up there punching buttons and pulling levers.”
“Welcome aboard, Wyatt,” said the heavily muscled African-American chief warrant officer in the left-seat, a smile blooming below the lowered visor.
“Pleasure’s all mine, Haynes,” Cade answered. “Do I have a couple of minutes to adjust my slip before you and Ari resume your never-ending attempt at pinning a puker patch on me?”
“Adjust away,” Ari said, suppressing a laugh.
“Wheels up in five,” Haynes warned, his voice deep and unmistakable even through the onboard comms.
Wasting no time, and under the watchful eye of Lopez and Cross, Cade unzipped the gym bag and spilled its contents on the floor. He arranged the items in a row by his feet. Next, he drew his Gerber combat dagger and carefully sliced through the laces on both of his tan desert boots. He sheathed the Gerber then slipped the worn items off his feet and nudged them out of sight under his seat. He scooped up the black plast
ic-and-Velcro stirrup-looking contraptions Daymon had liberated from “the sporting goods room” at the place he hoped to call home one day. Sensing all eyes on him, Cade slipped a heel into each brace and tugged and adjusted the nylon rear straps until the built-in pivot points were positioned comfortably over each protruding ankle bone while still leaving him an acceptable range of motion front to back. The topmost strap was wider than the rear and wrapped around his lower leg below the calf. He cinched both ankle braces down tight and tested them for fit.
Good to go.
Sensing the turbines spooling up, Cade glanced toward the cockpit and noticed Ari inputting waypoints on the wide touchscreen display stretching the cockpit between him and Haynes. Swinging his gaze around he saw Lopez and Cross eyeballing him. A grin was parked on Lopez’s face, while Cross was nodding, a knowing look clearly evident on his.
Unable to curb his curiosity, Lopez asked, “What the eff are those and where did you get them?”
“Says Active Ankles right here on the strap,” Cade answered glibly. “A friend gave them to me earlier today.”
Not wanting Ari to hear him, Lopez closed a fist around his boom microphone and mouthed, “Still wobbly from the Draper crash?”
Cade nodded. Grabbed up the pair of well-worn size 9 Danner boots he’d pulled from the bag and began working the laces loose. “Same friend got me these, too,” he said, heading off the next line of questioning.
Satisfied, Lopez sank into his seat and tightened his safety harness.
“Two mikes,” Haynes said.
“I did both ankles real bad playing hoops at Venice Beach,” Cross intoned. “They’ve never really fully healed. No idea how I made it through BUDs on them.”
Grinning, Lopez said, “Because you’re shit hot and high speed, Cross.”
Smiling inwardly, Cade tucked his black pants legs into the dark brown boots, cinched the laces and bloused the cuffs. After wiggling his toes and rolling each ankle in a tight little clockwise circle, he silently deemed himself mission capable.
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