Ree paused, looking around the assembled men. Most of these officers would be given landholdings between Hoboken and New York City, while some would return with him to his base in the City. He’d presented land awards—hereditary awards—as a gift for a job well done. But the truth was that only those he trusted the most would come with him back to New York City, and whatever was learned about Taggart’s nascent farms and their weird techniques would be implemented in open spaces throughout Manhattan island as well.
In reality, those who stayed in New Jersey were a buffer between Ree and his enemy, Taggart. Between them and the “gifts” his strange western ally would be sending soon, he was certain he could stabilize his situation. His island would be the start of a grand Korean empire in North America.
All he really had to do was institute feudalism under the guise of hereditary administrative leadership. Add the word “hereditary” and all of his officers were chomping at the bit to start their own little kingdoms—all for the good of the People, of course. Human nature, Ree mused, was very predictable. It was a useful trait.
* * *
“Dammit, Carl,” Mary Ann said, “I can’t believe our luck. Just when it looked like our supporters were wavering, a miracle on our doorstep. Have you been out since yesterday? Have you felt the energy out there? The silent majority, who want us to stand on our walls and piss on the Empire when they come—they’re not so silent right now. You can practically hear the hum of a thousand whispered conversations right now.”
Carl blinked at her probably unintentionally poetic wording. He shifted uncomfortably in the hard red plastic office chair in the safehouse living room. The dim light from the lanterns, necessary even in broad daylight due to the covered windows, seemed at odds with the excitement he felt. The Empire massacre might as well have been a gift wrapped in golden paper with a pretty red bow on top. Thank you, Clan. “I’ve been out there. I’ve felt it. And I’ve heard things. Like, Diamondback’s allies are waffling on holding the election now, after promising it soon for weeks. That’s bad news for the Interim Speaker, and very good news for you. We need to make sure everybody knows why, maybe have people insert it into all that whispering.”
Mary Ann grinned as she stood from the couch. She paced in a circle around the coffee table, eyes on the floor, and held out one finger. “One, Diamondback can’t say the Empire is unbeatable anymore, because we all just saw them get their asses handed to them.” She held out another finger. “Two, the ones we questioned have all said the Empire got a bloody nose in Michigan outside Saginaw when they tussled with the Indians up there, and withdrew. Three,” she said, with only her thumb and pinky left unextended, “Illinois is getting their act together, according to the prisoners we questioned, and they’ve stopped the Empire as well. It’s the reason they’re coming east, Carl—because they can’t expand to the north or west. They can be beaten, and now all of Liz Town knows it.”
Carl sat patiently through Mary Ann’s monologue, not wishing to interrupt her train of thought. He watched her as she sat down again. “You’re right, of course. We don’t need more whispering. We need to go rouse the rabble. Strike while the iron is hot, and get as many newly brave fighters on our side as we can. For once, I agree with you.”
Mary Ann’s eyes lit up as she watched him intently. “Yes! Do or die. It will be risky but worth it if we can get organized, then we can force that vote we’ve been delaying. We can elect a real Speaker and get our asses in gear preparing for the Empire.”
“That would be you, of course,” Carl said. He could barely contain his enthusiasm, but of course, those were precisely the times when it was smart to calm the hell down and think before acting. “You’ve got my loyalty, and the Timber Wolves back you as well. We need to get word to the leaders of the other Bands, the ones who aren’t Diamondback supporters, and organize a sit-down.”
Mary Ann leaned forward, sitting on the edge of her seat. “No. We need decisive action right now, not powwows. We strike while the warriors are ready. I’ll go to them personally. I’ll bring the message right to their doorsteps, where their fighters can hear every word. It’ll be hard to play old-world politics with their warriors cheering for battle and an election to set them into action.”
Carl’s jaw tightened. He had been afraid of this. Typical Liz Town attitude… he had to rein her in if he could. “No way. The Interim Speaker and my ex-wife have already tried to kill you once, and damn near succeeded. How the hell can I keep you safe if—”
“That was in the middle of the night while we were scurrying around in the dark like scared mice. That’s what happens when you play cloak-and-dagger against people who live and operate in the shadows. We need to stand in the spotlight and shout, not hide. Pamela and her puppet, Horace, won’t dare attack me with thousands of Liz Town warriors clamoring for blood. It’d be civil war, Carl. She’d lose, and she knows it.”
Mary Ann stood suddenly and made for the door. Carl half-fell out of his chair scrambling to intercept her. He slid in front of her just as she approached the front door. “Dammit, listen Mary Ann! Think about this, will you? Messages, we meet in safety and—”
Mary Ann reached both hands out, grabbing Carl by both shoulders, and cut him off again. “Carl, enough. It’s done. I’m going. We can plan our moves as we go, but we need to act. Quickly, decisively, and right now. Now get out of my way.” She tried to push him to the side.
Carl had a choice. Resist, and she’d do it anyway but without his advice and protection, or go with it and try to keep her safe. He let out a sharp, tense breath and let her move him to the side. “Maybe you’re right,” he said. He sure didn’t feel that way, but Mary Ann was a good leader, maybe a great one, and she had great instincts. He had to allow that maybe she was right. Either way it was moot—she was doing this. “Okay, fine. I’m with you.” Carl took a deep breath. He wanted his next statement to sound convincing. “Let’s go whip up a storm and let Horace L. Wattleberger reap what Pamela sowed.”
“There’s the Carl Woburn I’ve heard so much about. Glad to meet you again,” Mary Ann said, eyes crinkling at the edges with mirth. “Now, let’s go start a riot!”
- 20 -
0545 HOURS - ZERO DAY +252
THE HOUSE ACROSS the street was virtually a mansion. The central portion was brick-built and looked ancient. To either side, angling outward toward the street like wings, newer additions had been added. They were more modern, yet still “classically inspired.” The overall effect worked well, visually.
Before the house stretched a parking circle, paved with cobblestones with an opulent fountain in the center. Though the fountain no longer pumped water, it was still delightful, a beautiful masterwork of sculpture in granite, forming two swans facing away from one another. A couple acres of land surrounded the house, most of it in the rear, with garden plots, fruit and nut trees, horse stables… The entire property was surrounded by an ornate stone wall topped with a sturdy wrought iron fence, all of which was more for beauty and to tell onlookers “Keep Out” than for any real protective value. It predated any such need, after all.
“So this is where the Interim Speaker is staying?” asked the woman next to Carl, her voice low and raspy, almost like a whisper.
“It’s where the Speaker must live, by our laws,” Carl replied. “Sunshine, why did you agree to this? You and your people are outlawed—you could get killed.”
“I wanted to see how the other half lived. You Liz Towners got it cushy,” Sunshine said, trying to lighten the mood, then added, “If we die, it’s still worth it for what my people might get out of this.”
It made sense to Carl. He’d have made the same choices. “You realize if this goes sideways, no Band will claim knowledge of us. You’ll be treated as an invader, and I’ll be treated like a traitor.” The thought almost made him shudder despite the warm layers he wore beneath his leather jacket.
“But the Timber Wolves will still help the rest of my small band. Food. Weapon
s. Allies. We’ll be safer than the other groups in the wildlands, and safer from them, too. Besides, I can’t let you go get yourself killed. Who can I mac on if you’re dead?”
“Anyone but me?” Carl said.
“Don’t even front. Someday I’m going to get you to smash.”
“Maybe if we live through this, I’ll surprise you,” Carl said.
Sunshine smiled and pulled her long hair down over her left shoulder to hang over her breast, and fiddled with it nervously, wrapping a few strands around one finger and looking up at him through her lashes like a shy child. It was adorable, and awkward and, he allowed, tremendously appealing.
“Don’t be a tease, Carl,” she said, playing it off, but Carl had seen the moment of odd shyness.
Maybe she had been serious about it this whole time. He had never really been sure, but hadn’t tried to find out, either. It felt wrong to try to hook up with a woman who might only be interested in hopes of getting food. So he had just given her what food he could, without strings.
Carl grinned through his own awkwardness. “Yeah right, you’re the tease here, Sunshine. Anyway, we’re about five minutes from showtime. You solid on the plan?”
Sunshine took a deep breath, but she didn’t show any signs of being overly nervous. She had always been brave, every time he’d seen her. “Yeah,” she said, “I got it. We’re plausible deniability for the Kodiaks and your Band.”
“More or less. And the rest of it?”
“We move out five minutes after shift change, kill anyone who resists, tie the rest up, and kidnap the Interim Speaker.”
“Right,” Carl said. “Then we force him to sign the election decree, authorizing a vote on a permanent Speaker within twenty-four hours so the vote happens now.”
Five minutes later, ten men and women wearing Diamondback colors converged on the mini-mansion’s front door and entered. A minute later, ten more left the building and departed in every direction, alone or in pairs, talking quietly. Carl practically stared at his mechanical watch as the seconds hand swept around the face. Each second took an eternity, and with each tick of the watch hand, Carl’s tension level rose. Soon he was strung like a guitar, taut and practically vibrating with the urge to begin.
As the minutes hand ticked to twelve and the hours hand ticked to six, Carl’s heart skipped a beat. It was mission time. He, Sunshine, and six of her wildlands group emerged from the dense shrubbery and headed toward the front of the house. He saw another, smaller group heading toward the right side of the house, and more drifting silently across the backyard. Yet another would hit the other end of the house, as well. The last group was in position, spread out, posted up at each of the house’s four corners to kill anyone who escaped.
Without a word, one of Carl’s group kicked the front door by the knob, shattering the latch assembly and sending the door swinging inward. He stepped back as another of Sunshine’s team bolted through the doorway. There was the boom of a shotgun, and Sunshine’s man collapsed forward to the floor with a thud. Another boom, and a big chunk of wood was torn from the door frame.
Then from the right came the sound of two rifles fired and the tinkle of shattered glass. A scream inside, another thump, and Carl saw the shotgun slide across the floor in view of the doorway.
“Go, go!” Carl said, growling from between clenched teeth, and his team poured through the doorway, Carl entering next-to-last. He glanced to his right and saw that one could see straight down the length of the addition to the huge bay windows on the far side, where another team was coming in through shattered windows. It must have been one of them who killed the shotgun-wielding guard. He heard more gunfire from the rear of the house, and still more through the house’s left wing although he couldn’t see straight through it the way he could with the other wing.
And then, silence. All guards downstairs were dead or incapacitated. Now came the hard part—getting up the two arched stairwells in the foyer that led upstairs, where half the guards and the Interim Speaker would be readying themselves for the assault they knew had to come next. Carl and his people crouched behind cover as best they could, covering the upper landing from every angle—no one would pop out and surprise them without catching bullets first.
Though the target and his guards upstairs made no effort to come out—and why should they?—the upstairs doors that he could see were all open, making it difficult to head up without being fired upon by the people in those rooms, whichever rooms were actually occupied. Carl had no way to tell which ones were defended, or if they all were.
He had a little surprise ready for the Interim Speaker and his guards, though he’d give them the chance to surrender first. They wouldn’t likely take it, but he had to try. “Surrender and I swear you won’t be harmed,” Carl called up the stairway.
There was silence for a moment, and then a man’s voice called down, “I’m coming out. Y’all got the upper hand, here.”
Abruptly, a burst of gunfire interrupted the relative silence. Carl ducked down, but then heard a thump on the floor from upstairs.
Another voice yelled down, “No one is surrendering! You hear me down there? You want me, come and get us.”
Carl looked down at the gleaming marble floor, the flecks of gray amidst the white prompting thoughts of the blood that would soon be splattered—probably on both sides of the fight. Well, he had tried. Time for Plan B. He glanced to his left, to his right, nodded each time, then took a small cylinder out of his side cargo pocket. He pulled a pin on his while holding the spoon down. With his other hand, he counted to three with fingers held above him, and then threw his cylinder up to the upper landing, and two more landed on either side of his. He closed his eyes and covered his ears.
Bang! The flash-bang grenades went off, nearly deafening and blindingly bright despite his precautions. The other two lobbed up were smoke grenades. Carl wasted no time—he bolted up the left stairs and kept his rifle aimed at the right-hand landing. Those on the other stairs did the same, a mirror image. If anyone came out of those rooms, they’d get tagged.
At the top, the smoke grew thicker, and he could no longer see to the far side of the upper landing, nor its open doors. He only saw the closest one. All around him, people paired up at the doors on the landing as planned.
In the movies, people peeked around doorways, considered the surroundings, and then bolted inside with guns blazing, taking out five or ten guys by themselves. In reality, that first peek was fatal. Carl’s training—and how he had briefly trained this team in the time available—was simpler. Take a deep breath, rush through the doorway, and step aside, shoot at anything that moved, but find some damn cover. The doorway was a kill zone, a choke point. To survive, you had to not be in it when the shooting started.
Carl led the charge through the doorway, saw one man standing with a rifle, and fired. His target went down screaming. The room was large, set up as an office and library. There was a counter to his right that housed a wet bar, and he slid behind it for concealment. To the other side of the doorway was a chair, and one of Sunshine’s people crouched behind it. The rest hadn’t made it inside. On the far side of the room was a huge mahogany desk, a couch, and a loveseat.
Carl barked, “Now!”
A second later, two more of the flash-bang grenades sailed into the room just as two men with rifles popped up. Carl crouched as low as he could, eyes shut, hands over his ears again. From this distance, as the grenades went off, the noise was deafening. He stood from behind the counter and through the smoke he saw the two armed men had dropped their rifles, and had their hands to their eyes. It was reflex, and it was fatal—Carl and his other man inside opened up, dropping both. Carl bolted for one end of the couch, his partner for the other, and still more of his team burst through the open doorway.
Once around the couch he could see behind the heavy wooden desk, and his jaw dropped, though his rifle barrel didn’t. The Interim Speaker lay curled in a ball, someone dressed unlike any Liz Towne
r crouched down, hands over his ears, a pistol on the floor beside him… and Pamela, who lay on the floor with her hands behind her head.
He had never wanted to kill anyone so badly as at this moment. He trusted the others to cover the guards, and he had stopped hearing gunfire from elsewhere on the landing, so he focused like a laser on the three behind the desk. “Hands up, or die,” Carl said, and half hoped one of them would make a move for a weapon.
They didn’t, however. Hands slowly went up, and Carl barked, “Get up. Face the wall. Hands on the wall. Do it now.”
Pamela, the Diamondback leader, and the unknown man all moved slowly to comply after a glance to the menacing barrel of Carl’s rifle. Two other infiltrators also took aim on the three of them. One said, “Their guards are dead, Carl. Want me to smoke these three?”
“No. I’d love to, but if they comply, they can take their chances with Liz Town justice.”
Pamela’s face screwed up into a knot, and her bottom lip trembled. “Carl—”
“Shut up, Pam. You have nothing to say that I want to hear.”
“I only did what’s best for Liz Town,” she cried out, her voice cracking.
Maybe she even believed it, but Carl learned long ago not to trust her tearful displays. Even if she was being honest, it didn’t matter. Carl said, “I have an election decree. Your friend the Diamondback is going to sign it, or die.” He took a sheet of paper from his pocket where it had been folded. With one hand, he unfolded it and set it on the desk. “Alright, you wannabe Speaker, turn around and sign the paper. If you don’t, I’m going to kill you here and now. Move slowly…”
The Interim Speaker turned around. Carl didn’t recognize him, but that wasn’t unusual in a town the size of Liz Town, especially with their division into Bands. The Speaker read the paper and turned pale. “You can’t do this,” he said. “It’ll be the death of us all.”
Dark New World (Book 5): EMP Resurrection Page 26