by William Oday
“Sarge, remember when I stayed late last week so you could go to Parent’s Night at Noor’s school?”
Mason nodded. He was still a little perturbed with Beth for demanding he take the night off. He didn’t think seeing a classroom covered with art projects and getting a personal report on Noor’s academic performance merited taking time away from protecting the President of the United States.
It was a matter of priorities.
He wasn’t against attending those kinds of things. He just didn’t think it was the best use of his time when things were still so fragile.
But, sometimes the immediate interests of a happy marriage outweighed the more distant interests of continuing civilization.
“What do you need?” Mason asked.
“Well, Iridia is cooking tonight and has invited me over for dinner.”
Iridia Reshenko. One of the most successful supermodels on the planet before the outbreak. And with an attitude to match. Mason had begrudgingly taken her on as a close protection client and somehow she’d become almost like family in the following months.
Like the kind of family that annoyed you to no end and who you couldn’t stand to be around for more than a few minutes.
Being family, he knew a few things about her. One being that she was a terrible cook. Mason couldn’t cook an egg without burning it, but she made him look like a five-star chef in comparison.
“And you actually want to go?”
Miro shrugged. “It’s the first time I’ve seen her take initiative since, you know.”
That was an enormous veiled reference.
Yes, he knew.
Her father, Anton Reshenko, was the maniacal genius who had created and released the Delta Virus on the world. Finding out that her dad was responsible for wiping out over ninety percent of humanity had messed her up.
And she wasn’t all that stable to begin with.
But Miro’s you know covered even more. It also included the fact that shortly after Iridia discovered her father was a mass murderer of unimaginable scale, she watched him get torn to pieces by the very creatures his virus created.
That was enough to unhinge anyone.
Mason’s brows pinched together. “You’re gonna eat food that she makes?”
Miro grimaced.
Mason remembered the one and only other time Iridia had tried to help out in the kitchen. She cooked bits of chicken to add to a soup Beth was making. The dangerously undercooked meat ended up giving everyone cramps and the runs for a week.
Miro’s grimace showed he remembered it too. “I’m happy she’s making an effort and I want to support her in that.”
“You really care about her, huh?”
“I do.”
“And it’s not just about her shapely backside and ridiculously long legs?”
“I care about those, too. What? Are you too old and crotchety to notice a gorgeous yellow rose in full blossom?”
Mason sometimes wondered if Miro consciously tried to work in references to the great state that was Texas, or if he was so Texan that it just came naturally. He was about to respond with a denigrating reference about Miro’s mother when a voice boomed through the closed door.
“Bernard, I don’t give a damn about your concerns over the curfew! As I have already said a hundred times, it is a temporary measure necessary for the safety of our citizens. We can’t claim to be rebuilding this proud nation and not be able to guarantee basic security.”
Mason nodded at him. “Go ahead. I’ll keep the bloodshed to a minimum.”
“Thanks, Sarge!” Miro whispered over his shoulder as he was already walking away.
“And make sure there are no leftovers!”
Miro’s suppressed chuckle echoed down the hall.
The heated discussion inside continued.
“You’ve said it a hundred times, Gabriel. My concern is that you haven’t meant it a single one of them. Personal liberty is paramount and must be protected. It is one of our founding principles. Or don’t you care about those anymore?”
Something crashed inside the Oval Office.
“How dare you question my integrity! I’ve given everything I have to guide this country back from the brink. People are dying, Bernard. The latest victim just last night, for God’s sake!”
“Some might say the timing of that attack provided convenient justification for a curfew you were already itching to put in place.”
The anger in the President’s voice iced over. “Listen to yourself. You sound like an insane person.”
A chair creaked as someone stood up. The President continued. “Mr. Vice-President, I have more important matters to attend to. Matters pertaining to reality.”
“Before you so graciously ignore my concerns and kick me out of your office, I’d like to raise one more point.”
“Fine, whatever. Get it off your chest if that’s what you need to do.”
“I’m not concerned over some petty sense of personal injustice! I’m concerned for the future of this democracy! I steered the surviving members of the emergency council to appoint you for an interim basis only. The crisis is over. We must have an election for the highest office.”
There was a long, silent pause.
“I agree, but the crisis isn’t over. We have deltas breaking into the Green Zone attacking people. Winter is coming and we’re running out of food. Our tenuous agreement with the farmers to the north could end at any time. An election right now would only cause more chaos.”
“And who gets to be the judge of when the time is right? Let me guess. You.”
“Bernard, are you going to leave my office of your own free will or do you require one of my agents to toss you out like a bum from a bar?”
“I am the Vice-President of the United States of America! One breath away from assuming your position, might I remind you!”
Something shattered into a million pieces.
Mason raised his hand to the door, about to rap on it to divert their attention. The last thing the city needed was the President and Vice-President getting into a brawl in the Oval Office. The news would leak out one way or another and that wasn’t the appearance of cool, calm, and collected that the administration needed to project.
“Get out of my office!”
The door flew open and the Vice-President nearly steamrolled through Mason as he stomped out. He stormed past and huffed down the hall heading in the direction of his own smaller suite of offices.
“Mason!” President Cruz said as he spotted him in the open doorway. “Come in and shut the door. We need to talk.”
5
President Cruz gestured at one of the two seats opposite him on the near side of the large mahogany desk. He was in a sour mood. The relationship between him and the Vice-President had been slowly deteriorating. This wasn’t their first disagreement. It wasn’t even their first argument that ended in shouting.
It was, however, the first time they had almost come to blows.
Things couldn’t continue like this without something bad happening.
Though offered the seat, Mason wasn’t the type to lounge around on the job. He instead stood at relaxed attention waiting for the President to finish writing whatever note he was working on.
Cruz finished the note and then gestured again at the seat. “Please, take a seat.”
“Yes, Sir.”
He wasn’t going to outright refuse. He looked down and saw the Vice-President’s briefcase in the seat. He was notorious for always needing it and also always leaving it behind. Mason picked it up and started for the door. “I’ll have an aide take it over to him.”
Cruz waved him off. “No. I’ll take it to him later. It will be my peace offering.”
Mason nodded. It wasn’t his job to get in the way. He placed it on the President’s desk and Cruz shuffled it to the side. He took the offered seat and sat upright at attention. An invitation to sit didn’t mean to let it all hang out like you did on the couch at home.
“I’m
sorry about all that,” the President said. He swept a hand through the air as if literally sweeping away a dark cloud. “We both want what’s best for the nation. We just see different routes to achieving it.”
Mason nodded. No comment would be forthcoming.
“Listen, I wanted to give you a few minutes of my undivided attention. I know that’s been a commodity in rare supply lately and you’ve been waiting patiently for a window.”
“Thank you, Sir. I understand completely. The thought of being in your shoes gives me nightmares.”
“What is it that you wanted to discuss?”
Mason didn’t want to bring it up, especially considering what he’d just said and how much he knew was already on the President’s plate.
But, he’d made a promise to Beth.
“Sir, I was wondering if you’d had time to give more thought to the possibility of a trip to check on my wife’s parents. I hate to ask, but she—”
Cruz adjusted his thin-framed fashionable glasses that seemed more at home on a Silicon Valley executive than the President of the United States. “I know, I know. I have a wife, too. I know how persuasive they can be.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“I promised you both that I’d approve a rescue mission as soon as possible. It’s the least I could do to repay you. That is still my intention; however, our one and only helicopter capable of a trip of that distance is currently unavailable.”
Mason had noticed the VH-3D Sea King missing from its usual spot across the street on the Civic Center Plaza grounds for a couple of days. He’d assumed it had been taken into a hanger for routine maintenance since no one had said anything to him about it.
He chided himself for the incorrect assumption. Those were the ones that got people killed.
Its mysterious absence instantly moved to the top of the list of discussion topics. As Director of the Presidential Protective Division in the Secret Service, Mason had a keen interest in events that changed his detail’s response capabilities. Such a change should’ve come across his desk before the fact.
“Yes, Sir. I was going to ask about that.”
He wasn’t. But now he was.
“I’m sorry, Mason. I realize you should’ve been consulted beforehand. The decision resulted from an explicit recommendation from our top military minds. Captain Whitaker is leading a team in the field. Their mission is classified, but rest assured it is in the vital security interests of this nation.”
Mason didn’t like it. Not the mission. He had no judgement on a topic he knew nothing about. It was the decrease in resources. Having quick access to aerial transport was a key component in the overall security scheme for the President. “I can get one of the Bell 205s shuffled over to cover the gap.”
“I knew you’d make it work. As for the trip to Ojai, we’ll discuss it once our men and helicopter have returned.”
Mason nodded. Beth wouldn’t be happy, but what did she expect? The President couldn’t put national security interests on the back burner so that a private citizen could check on the welfare of family members.
He didn’t necessarily like the answer either.
He would’ve loved nothing more than to find Tito and Mamaw alive and well, tending their chickens and goats, wondering what all the fuss was about. If they made it through the chaos of the first couple of weeks, they were probably still alive.
Maybe still alive.
Hence the splinter that constantly clawed at Beth’s mind. The uncertainty of their loss kept a tight lid on her happiness. He saw it in the little moments. They weren’t all the time and she was by no means morose. But her normally cheerful outlook accentuated the off moments.
He’d see her washing dishes, staring off into space with a little frown tightening her chin. He’d roll over in the morning and find her staring at the ceiling. A fleeting chill before warmth returned with a morning kiss on the cheek.
“Is the report accurate?” the President asked.
“I’m sorry, Sir. What was that?”
Mason hadn’t been getting enough sleep with having to cover around-the-clock protection with so few men working under him. And only one, Miro, that he trusted completely if anything went sideways.
The President gave him a curious look. “I asked if there is any truth to a report that Chief Fowler sent over.”
“What report, Sir?”
“A report stating that you physically assaulted him,” he glanced at a paper on his desk. “That it’s going to require stitches to put his lower lip back together.” He returned his gaze to Mason. “Is that true?”
Mason chewed his lip. It was and it wasn’t. Guaranteed the report didn’t mention how Fowler and the other two officers did nothing while he nearly got killed.
But then that would place him beyond the wire without any good reason to justify it. So, he wasn’t going to bring it up either.
“Yes, Sir. Chief Fowler and I were surveying the fence in the area of the previous night’s breach for the planned upgrades.”
The President’s lips pressed together. “Selfish goddamn scavengers are putting everyone in danger! A man was killed last night. How can any of us feel safe?”
Mason didn’t have the answer.
“So you were inspecting the fence.”
“Yes, Sir. He brought up the new curfew. I mentioned that it was unfortunate that it was necessary. He then got belligerent and laid a hand on me. I then pre-empted further confrontation with a decisive strike.”
“That’s one way of saying it. Another way is that you two hate each other and you decided to punch him in the mouth.”
“Only after he laid a hand on me, Sir.”
“Well, the problem is that no matter who started it, Randall Hurst is going to find out about it and plaster it all over the front page of the Daily News Report.”
Mason grimaced. Of course, he was right. Nothing happened in the city without Randall finding out and publishing it as front page news. Especially nothing that cast the President in a negative light.
“Exactly. So, I’m sure you agree we can have no more of that.” The President’s gaze hardened. “Do we understand each other?”
“One hundred percent, Sir.”
The steel in the President’s eyes melted and he picked up a sheaf of papers. He turned the page on the discussion as he flipped through the stack.
“Let’s review the security plan for the inauguration ceremony tomorrow.”
6
ELIZABETH WEST tapped on the door to the bathroom. A sniffling on the other side told her it was still occupied. Iridia had turned into public enemy number one after the Daily News Report broke the story on her father’s involvement in the creation and release of the Delta Virus.
Now, everybody knew her father was the biggest mass murderer in history. He had already become the new standard by which all evil was measured. The usual comparisons to Adolph Hitler were now to Anton Reshenko.
Being his daughter had nearly gotten her killed the day the story ran. That idiot Hurst took no responsibility for putting her in danger either, claiming he had a journalistic responsibility to report the news. Only his version of the news did everything it could to imply that Iridia knew about her father’s scheme beforehand and may have helped, which Beth knew were both absolute lies.
The girl barely knew how to dress herself when they’d first met.
To suggest she was somehow involved in her father’s insane plan was ridiculous. And the suggestion would’ve gotten her killed if it weren’t for Mason’s extraordinary skills at keeping people alive.
While the number of death threats had declined in recent weeks as the paper returned to its favorite pastime of attacking the President, the seething hostility directed at her hadn’t. Everywhere the poor girl went, she got dark looks and whispered accusations behind her back.
And sometimes to her face.
It wasn’t the kind of thing any normal person could handle. And Iridia didn’t approach normal in the firs
t place.
Beth tapped the door again.
“You okay?”
Another sniffle.
“Uh, yes. Just give me a minute.”
“Take your time. Join me in the exam room when you’re ready. Ms. Lafferty is back again. I can’t wait to find out what else is wrong with Jelly Wiggles.”
Her weak attempt at humor didn’t penetrate the hollow plywood door.
“Yeah, okay,” Iridia said.
Beth frowned. Her heart ached for her. As annoying as the former supermodel could be, she also had endearing qualities that had become more and more apparent the closer they got. Though separated by no more than a decade in age, Beth had begun to feel like a protective mother to the poor girl.
Iridia’s wounds needed healing and Beth was a doctor in both profession and spirit.
Beth headed through the front office and into the corridor of exam rooms. On the wall outside of Exam Room 2, she gathered the file on Jelly Wiggles and then entered.
Ms. Lafferty stroked the gray British Shorthair’s back as the cat lounged on the exam table. Jelly Wiggles didn’t do anything but lounge. At forty-one pounds, he was the fattest cat Beth had ever seen. And his imagined and real health problems usually stemmed from that.
“Good evening, Ms. Lafferty. How is Jelly Wiggles feeling today?”
Beth asked about today specifically because she personally knew how he was yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that and so on because Ms. Lafferty brought him in every day.
For over a month now.
After the first few visits, Beth realized the appointments were more about Ms. Lafferty than about her cat. She was an elderly woman who had lost her husband to the virus. She was hanging on by a thread. And maybe the thread was their daily check-in on the health of the only thing she had left in the world.
“What took so long? Jelly Wiggles is hurting!”
Beth had to believe the old woman’s persnickety style of communication was well-earned.
“Sorry for the delay. I was checking on my assistant.”
Ms. Lafferty’s eyes narrowed. She’d made her feelings about Iridia well-known the day after the story ran. That appointment ended with Iridia in tears and a firm warning to the old woman that further abuse would result in her having to seek veterinary care elsewhere.