Nation of Enemies

by H. A. Raynes

  A heaviness comes over her. But she savors the moment that remains, the peacefulness of ignorance. Finally, she nods. “Say it. I need you to say it.”

  Red tinges his eyes. “There was a group of terrorists. I’m not exactly sure of the details but they released sarin into the crowd.”

  “Oh my God.” Her mouth goes dry. “But there are survivors, aren’t there?”

  “Yes, but—­”

  “Is she in the ER? She’s being treated?”

  “No, Lily.” Cole tightens his hold on her hand. “Kate’s dead.”

  Every muscle in her body releases as she sinks deeper into the mattress. The pain in her abdomen is pushing through the drugs. If she begs, maybe they’ll give her another epidural to numb it. To numb everything. She stares at the ceiling but the tears don’t come. As Kate was dying, she had been so mad that Kate hadn’t called to check in. Can she really be gone?

  The door opens and a stout nurse with a wide grin wheels in Talia, who is sealed into a bacteria-­free, heated box.

  “I thought she needed a break from the NICU,” the nurse says as she parks the incubator at Lily’s side. “She’s eating, crying, and she’s very alert. Look at those eyes. Perfect, isn’t she?”

  “Perfect,” Lily whispers.

  The nurse must sense the emotion in the room. “I’ll be back. Ring if you need anything.”

  Thin pink arms break free of the tightly wrapped hospital blanket as the baby stretches and pumps her fists. Cole moves around the bed to see their daughter, pure and uncomplicated. Lily wants desperately to hold her and nestle her close, brush her fingers along Talia’s fine black hair that stands on end.

  “I’m so sorry, Lil,” Cole says.

  Lily reaches inside the plastic box, rests a hand on the baby’s belly. “Talia Kate Fitzgerald.”

  Cole repeats her name, his voice soft. He kisses the top of Lily’s head. Warm tears roll down her cheeks, down her neck. The thought of life without Kate is unimaginable. How could we have brought another child into this world? What have we done?

  June, 2032

  Chapter 16

  IT’S MADNESS IN front of Mass General. Wearing sunglasses and a baseball hat, Taylor Hensley keeps her head down as she weaves through the horde of reporters and cameramen. Over the past several hours, video of the State House attack has played nonstop on seemingly every screen. Each time Sienna sees it she yells, “Grandpa!” The terrorists’ wands make her think it’s a game. She giggles, delighted at the grown-­ups playing as if they’re kids. But all Taylor sees is her father using a Secret Ser­vice agent as his shield. Maybe now everyone will see him for who he really is. Still, he lies incapacitated in a hospital bed, and the medical staff won’t update her over the phone. And maybe this is the end for him. So she came.

  As she’s about to cross the hospital threshold, they spot her. “Taylor Hensley! Are you here to reconcile with your father? Is it true you’re now a member of Patriot’s Church? Taylor!”

  The glass doors shut behind her and the verbal assault ends. She navigates security and follows a stream of ­people to the designated treatment area for victims of the attack. But at the security kiosk, when she gives her father’s name, she’s directed to elevators and a special unit on the twentieth floor. She rides up alongside an armed guard.

  At the entrance to the locked unit, she holds up her forearm to a wall scanner. It processes the chip and brings up her credentials. A buzzer sounds, the doors open. She passes through a decontamination vestibule that sprays something overhead, coating her clothes and skin with a faint film. After another set of double doors, she’s in the unit. Medical personnel attend to several patients in a large open room. The faces in these beds look familiar. She studies them. Yes, the news footage. Many of them were on the State House steps. Secret Ser­vice. Public servants. Media personalities. Most are unconscious with tubes down their throat or noses.

  “Can I help you?” A stout nurse stands at Taylor’s side.

  “I’m here to see Richard Hensley.” She pulls the hat and sunglasses from her head. “I’m his daughter.”

  “This way.” The nurse leads her down a long corridor. “He’s stable. That’s good because the first twenty-­four hours are the most important. He’s lost some muscle control, but that should come back relatively soon. An hour ago he woke up and spoke to Dr. Wendall. Given everything he’s been through, it’s quite a miraculous recovery.”

  Miraculous, indeed. Please let him be asleep. By habit her fingertips stroke her cheek, lingering on the scars left by the fragments from the MedFuture explosion. A constant reminder of Mason, of all that she lost. She remembers the eyes of the young intern who had bent over her face for hours picking out the tiny bits of debris. Flecks of amber in pools of green. With the mask over his nose and mouth, she’d only seen his eyes. He’d gotten out almost all the glass, but every now and then a little piece will work itself out.

  Up ahead, two broad-­shouldered Secret Ser­vice agents stand on either side of a glass door. Beyond them she can see her father, gray and unmoving, in a bed. The men give her a cursory glance as she brushes past them with the nurse.

  The room is alive with intermittent beeps, the hum of monitors, a controlled flow of circulating air. Taylor hates hospitals. She’d spent too much time in one watching her mother die. She stares at her father, slack-­jawed, a tube in his nose and an IV hooked into his arm. The nurse checks monitors and fluids.

  “So he could wake up any time now?”

  “Yes.” The nurse gives her a wry smile.

  Taylor knows the look. The rift between she and her father is widely known, though they’ve never confirmed it. The press has speculated about it ever since the MedFuture attack. The public knows the Hensley family history almost as well as they themselves know it.

  “The doctor will be in soon.” The nurse leaves, the doors shutting behind her.

  Suddenly, it’s harder to breathe, as though she’s been sealed into an enormous pouch with her father. If this were one of her graffiti pieces, it would be a bubble and her father would fill almost all of the space. Her face would be pressed against the surface, her nose exaggerated as she searches for a hole to slip through.

  From a distance, she studies him. On his ring finger is the wedding band he’s never taken off, though it’s been fifteen years since Taylor’s mother died. The deep creases in his forehead and cheeks are relaxed, making him look younger. This was the face she trusted and loved most of her life. She remembers when they used to go to Castle Island for hot dogs and ice cream at Sullivan’s. Families would carry in charcoal grills and lie on blankets under the trees. The air smelled of barbecue and the ocean. Sienna shares those kinds of uncomplicated times with him now. Taylor has allowed it and hopes she made the right decision. She wonders if an hour here and there can have too much influence. Maybe.

  An hour later he hasn’t moved, hasn’t made a sound. His private physician, Dr. Wendall, comes in to speak with her. Apparently her father was fairly lucid when he woke up. From early tests, the doctor believes he hit his head on the State House steps and has a concussion. They’re monitoring him to rule out a stroke, but the MRI shows no evidence of brain damage. From the nerve gas, he has respiratory issues that will fade and headaches that will subside. The doctor expects a full recovery.

  She thanks him and he leaves. So, her father’s not at Death’s door. This is almost a vacation for him. Good PR. They’ll probably throw him a parade after this. She slips back on the baseball hat and steps toward the door.

  “Taylor?” His voice is a raspy whisper.

  So close. She turns to face him. “They say you’re going to be okay.”

  “Lucky.”

  “That’s one word for it.”

  “What word—­” His breath is labored as he continues. “—­would you choose?”

  “There are just so
many.”

  His eyes close. She forces the memory of Sullivan’s into her mind once again. Be nice, she tells herself. “Sienna wanted me to tell you she hopes you’re feeling better.”

  A grin spreads across his dry, cracked lips. “Sienna.”

  She inches closer, considers talking about the swimming lessons Sienna’s taking and how she’s learning to read. But Taylor can’t be bothered with small talk. He points to a cup of water and she holds it for him to drink. Several awkward minutes pass as he appears to awaken more fully, taking deeper breaths. Finally he speaks again.

  “You’ve been busy.” The lines in his face deepen, his eyes fix on her.

  “Single mothers are generally busy.”

  “The Liberty headquarters piece was inspired.” His words are slow but his brain is not.

  “Thank you.” So, it was his SUV that night. She has a fleeting moment of satisfaction.

  “Does your new friend like it?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Reverend Mitchell.”

  “Don’t you have better things to do? Aren’t there more pressing matters of state than my social calendar?”

  “Not when your friends try to assassinate me.”

  Every muscle in her tenses. “The Reverend and Patriot’s Church had nothing to do with the attack! They have a strong belief in God, and last I checked, that’s one freedom we have left. And yes, we’re at war. But BASIA isn’t out killing innocent ­people.”

  “Aren’t they?”

  “Are you really going to point fingers?” At his bedside now, she enjoys looking down at him. “You flicked that first domino with powerful force and you’ve done nothing to stop it.”

  “Why would I?”

  “Why wouldn’t you?” She runs her fingers over the pockmarks on her cheek and neck. “How can you look at me and not want to stop it?”

  He closes his eyes. When he opens them again, there’s renewed energy in his voice.

  “I’m not responsible for the actions of terrorists. I didn’t blow up MedFuture. I didn’t scar your beautiful face, and I didn’t kill Mason. Any more than you did.”

  “Goddamn you.” Her hands curl into fists.

  “No one twisted your arm to join the party and to take the job at MedFuture. If you’re feeling guilt about Mason, you should ask yourself why. No one’s innocent, Taylor.”

  An old ache inside her stirs. She should walk away, but she can’t help herself. “I was young. I went along. If it wasn’t for you, the MedID wouldn’t be law. The terrorists wouldn’t have had a reason to bomb MedFuture. Your grand idea. You damned us all.”

  “If you want to go down that road, you wouldn’t have Sienna if it wasn’t for the MedID.”

  “Don’t try and take credit for anything as good and innocent as Sienna.”

  “You’re always so dramatic.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Taylor.” His tone is a snarl, a warning. “You’re aligning yourself with dangerous ­people. Don’t make yourself a party to the machine that killed Mason.”

  “Reverend Mitchell and his church did not kill Mason.”

  “I’m speaking simply as us against them. They—­the terrorists and this war they’ve started—­they killed Mason. I didn’t. This government didn’t.”

  Above his bed is an oil painting of Beacon Hill, familiar brownstones stretching up narrow slopes with cars crammed bumper-­to-­bumper. She stares at it and silently counts to ten.

  “Do you remember what it was like before?” she says. ­“People held jobs for years. Went on vacations. Saw doctors. Went to school. Saved money in a bank and bought a house.”

  “They were delusional.” Her father struggles to prop himself up on his pillows. “I’m glad your mother isn’t here to see this world.”

  “I’m glad she’s not here to see what you’ve done.”

  “I’m helping to cure cancer, Taylor. I’d imagine your mother would support my efforts.”

  “You can’t really believe that.” A laugh bubbles up in her. “You’re not a doctor or a scientist. Don’t take credit for their efforts.”

  “The MedID helps everyone. Gene editing and preventive medicine are conquering diseases. None of it would happen without the device.”

  “You twist reality so easily.” She shakes her head. “You changed everything. There’s no one more dangerous than you.”

  Taylor spins around and reaches for the door handle.

  “Let me give Sienna a clean MedID,” he says. “I’ll arrange one for each of you. You’ll be free to do what you want.”

  In the reflection from the glass he is two-­dimensional and without color, less than a man. “You’ve arranged enough.”

  “You and Sienna could have the world, you know. You could live in a Safe District. Travel. Come November you may have a President for a father.”

  It takes a few seconds for her to process the statement. He’s right, of course. This tragedy has left a void to be filled, and already the news is hailing him a survivor, a hero. It’s a foregone conclusion that he’ll become the Liberty Party’s presidential candidate.

  “Ten feet from this room ­people are dying from yesterday’s attack.” She turns back to face him. “But you only care if it affects your campaign.”

  “This isn’t about me. It’s about this country. If they’d killed us both yesterday, another party member would step in to run for office. Leaders rise to the occasion.”

  “Unless they’re ducking.”

  His cheeks flush and he gives a small shake of his head. “Well, my dear, if you don’t like it here, in a country where I might be President, you can always leave.”

  “This is my country,” Taylor says as she opens the door. “I’ll be sure to exercise my right to vote.”

  The door shuts behind her with a satisfying click.

  Chapter 17

  MID-­AFTERNOON SUN SLICES through Sebastian’s bedroom. A ray runs from the foot of the bed to the pillow, onto his face. He stirs and slowly blinks awake.

  The first thing he sees is Kate’s pillow. A few strands of blond hair stand out from the gray pillowcase. It’s all that’s left, pieces of her. Not the whole. Not Kate. He reaches for them and runs his fingers the length of the shafts, wraps them around his index finger until his fingertip turns blue.

  A muffled, intermittent vibration. He sits up, forgets the hair, which falls back onto the bed. Foraging through a mound of clothes on the floor, he pulls his cell from a pants pocket. For the briefest moment he wonders if this wasn’t all just a dream.

  “Kate?” he says into the phone.

  There’s a pause. “Sorry, man. It’s Renner.”

  His words are blocked, a jagged rock lodged in his throat.

  “You okay, Sebastian?”

  “Yeah.” He sits back on the bed and strokes the prickly black scruff on his face.

  “Take the week off. I’ve got it covered.”

  “There’s not a net wide enough to cover this shit.”

  “Washington sent us twenty agents as backup. We’ll find out who’s behind this.”

  “Any news from your informant?” asks Sebastian.

  “We met.” An audible sigh. “But again, Mitchell is claiming to be surprised by the attack. I gotta tell you, I’m not convinced BASIA was behind this one.”

  “The one thing we know is that Mitchell is highly organized and virtually untraceable.”

  “He’s never done a chemical attack,” says Renner.

  “Not that we know of.”

  “This was done with technology our lab hasn’t seen before,” Renner explains. “They studied one of the wands and found a miniature heating device that vaporized the sarin. It was a near-­perfect execution. Maybe there’s a rogue team of scientists out there, I don’t know.”

  �
�It was Mitchell,” Sebastian insists. “It’s been a decade since the Planes. He was due to deliver a big one.”

  Renner ignores him. “Hey, you need anything?”

  “You gonna make me a casserole?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Thanks, man.” He paces. Nothing feels right. Not the air in these rooms, not the clothes he’s wearing. He needs to do something. He needs to be of use. “I’m ready to go in.”

  “Go where?”

  “BASIA. Mitchell’s church.”

  “Now?” Renner asks.

  “Now is the best time. A big event is like recruitment for new terrorists.”

  “Things have changed. Don’t you think you’re too close to this?”

  “Name someone you know that hasn’t lost a family member in this war.”

  Silence.

  “It’s personal for all of us. Yeah, it happened for me this week. But this week, next week, what’s the difference? I’d say we’re all pretty damn passionate about the topic, wouldn’t you?”

  “I’ll go.” Renner’s voice sounds unsure.

  “You heard Satterwhite. You’re my handler. Plus you’ve got your dog and your informant depending on you.”

  There’s a loud exhale in Sebastian’s ear. “You been studying the legend?”

  “I’ve reviewed it. Need to go deeper. Develop more details while the techs create an online history that fits with the alias.”

  “You gonna shave your head?”

  “Thinking about a beard instead.”

  “I hear DARPA has developed some cool new surveillance toys.”

  “Let’s set up a meeting. Start playing.”

  “Hey, I spoke to my informant about being a witness and helping you on the inside.”

  “And?”

  “Just need another conversation or two. Need to make some reassurances. Supplying intel is one thing. Introducing you increases the potential to be caught.”