The Wolves Within

by David Lucin

  Where was Dad going with this conversation? Was he just venting? Maybe the booze was talking. The tightness in Philip’s belly thought otherwise, though; Dad had something on his mind. “You don’t have to tell me twice, Dad. I’m with you on that. But we’re looking good, aren’t we? However many hundred people marched on the dorms and had to be pushed back with tear gas. That’s the kind of support we need, right?”

  Elbows planted on the table, Dad steepled his fingers. “The mayor has outlawed gatherings of fifty or more. That move alone is a direct affront to what we’re doing, and it takes away any platform we have to rally residents to our cause. It makes us impotent. It silences us. If we try to speak out, I’m afraid there will be backlash. Clearly the police are unafraid of using violence or bending the law to further their own ends.” He blinked slowly. “Forces are arraying against CFF, son. That much is clear.”

  “What’s the next step, then? Everyone already knows you’re running for mayor. We could—”

  Dad interrupted and continued his train of thought as though Philip hadn’t spoken: “The police are overstretched. With uniforms at the Go Markets, the water treatment plant, city hall, the roadblocks, and now the dorms, they’re unable to concentrate in force without exposing key sites around town. In other words, they’re tied down. Immobile. Limited in what they can do to respond to a threat.”

  The dread lurking in Philip’s stomach worsened. He didn’t like this talk about tactics. It reminded him too much of his life of violence in Phoenix.

  “Sophie Beaumont,” Dad droned as if her name alone was toxic. “By pledging her support to the police, she gives them a mobile force. She has the farm, yes, but she has demonstrated that she can defend it while operating freely throughout town.”

  Mobile force? Operating freely? Dad was speaking like a military history professor, and it made Philip uncomfortable.

  “Sophie Beaumont,” Dad said again. “She’s the key.” He grinned, but there was no humor or joy in his expression. “I should have seen it all along. We could never work together. Our visions for Flagstaff differ in fundamental ways. But if she and her organization are crippled, the police will be unable to oppose us on their own.”

  “Crippled?” Philip blurted. “Dad, are you—”

  “Son,” he interrupted once more, “I’d like you to assemble a team. Whomever you want and however many you see fit. Strike the Beaumonts on their home turf. We must act quickly and decisively if we are to achieve victory.”

  The room began to spin. His father didn’t just ask him to take out the Beaumonts, did he? “Victory? You’re talking like you’re geared up to go to war or launch a coup.”

  Dad tilted his head, apparently confused by the question. “That is exactly what we are doing, son.”

  His matter-of-fact delivery was frightening. Philip tried telling himself that his father wasn’t serious, that this was some kind of strange test of loyalty, but he knew better than that. Dad was escalating and escalating fast. Too fast. Attacking the Beaumonts’ farm was a big step up from even the Go Market. Having already taken a life, Philip hoped to avoid spilling more blood. Taking control of the town by force was always a possibility, and he and Dad had discussed it in passing, but there was an understanding that a coup would come as a last resort. Philip didn’t think they were there yet. They still had options. “You sure that’s the right call?” he asked, careful to keep his tone respectful. “Once you make that move, there’s no going back. We’ll have to fight it out till we either win or lose. We ready to do that?”

  Rage twisted his father’s face, and he slammed his fist onto the desk hard enough to shake the suitcase. “I distinctly remember you and I standing at your mother’s grave and agreeing to follow this through to the end, the consequences be damned. She was taken from us, son. Given the opportunity to save another, of course your mother would take it. The will to sacrifice herself was in her blood, a part of her DNA. She should never have been put in that situation. Those who allowed it to happen are criminals, plain and simple, and must be held accountable for their negligence. Yet they continue to act with impunity.”

  With the back of his hand, he swatted a plastic pen holder off his desk. Philip jumped at the sound of it crashing to the floor. “If you asked them, they wouldn’t even know her name,” Dad roared. “Not Mayor Andrews, not the police, not the refugees who lived because she decided to die. None of them. They have to learn it. They have to remember. I want them seeing her face when they wake up in the morning and when they go to bed at night.” The man was borderline hyperventilating. “Do you recall what you told me at her grave that day? No half-measures. Those were your words, not mine, and now you’re telling me that what I propose is too much, that your mother is no longer worth the effort?”

  Philip saw himself at his mother’s bedside. She was so weak, so frail. “I know you’ll miss me,” she’d said to him. “And I’ll miss you. But I’ve lived a good life, Philly, and have no regrets. I hope you don’t, either.”

  Well, he did. He should have forced the doctors to administer the medication at gunpoint. Mom might have been angry with him, but better that than dead and in the ground.

  Dad took in a long breath, and his features softened. As quickly as the rage came, it left. The transition was unsettling. He crossed his arms, and when he spoke, he gazed directly through Philip. “Perhaps I was wrong to trust you with this operation, son. If you’re not willing to do what needs to be done, I won’t force you. I simply thought that your . . . unique experience for all those years would have made you particularly suited for the task. Apparently I misjudged you.”

  He rose from his seat, signaling that the conversation was over.

  Philip couldn’t move. His mind flitted between the images of his mother’s heart rate flatlining and of Valeria Flores collapsing to the asphalt. She’d played no role in Mom’s death or the circumstances that led to it, but she died anyway. If Philip did as his father asked, how many more would lose their lives? Where did the killing stop?

  Yet Dad was right; Philip had promised no half-measures. He even quoted himself to Rachel while they were waiting in the brewery. The police and especially Mayor Andrews had to know that their actions had consequences. And the Beaumonts? Siding with the forces responsible for Mom’s death made Sophie Beaumont complicit, whether she knew it or not. By standing with Andrews, Sophie was backing a policy of valuing the safety and well-being of strangers over people like Mom. Philip couldn’t accept that.

  On top of it all, his father’s remark about legal expenses slapped him in the face, emphasizing that he very literally owed this man his life. To waver in his commitment at this juncture would be the worst possible betrayal.

  So he said, “I’ll do it.” He tried to sound firm, but there was a traitorous crack to his voice. An uncertainty. “Give me three days to work out a plan and get my team together.”

  15

  Jenn was back on night shift at the Beaumonts’ farm. She preferred working at the dorms, mostly because the bike ride was so much shorter, but she didn’t mind being up here. The farm was familiar, and it felt a little safer, maybe because it was so far out of town.

  She made her way down a narrow dirt walking path on the west end of the property. On either side, rows and rows of potato plants stretched into the darkness. The music of crickets came from all directions. Above, the moonless sky seemed endless. Only memory and the faint starlight that shone through the haze guided her along her route. She pushed her bike; guards in the fields always had wheels in case they needed to rapidly deploy to another area.

  Since the police unleashed tear gas and the mayor ordered a ban on gatherings of over fifty people three days ago, there hadn’t been any other protests at McKay Village or elsewhere, but the mood in town was somber, and Jenn could almost taste the tension in the air. Many refugees were still afraid to leave their homes. Sam had gone on another two water runs and did his first food run to the Go Market yesterday.


  On the day after the demonstrations, Liam and a group of police visited the ranch to question Grierson about his involvement in all that had transpired to date, the Go Market included, but he was missing, and none of his employees knew where to find him. More likely, they simply weren’t willing to say.

  Where could he have gone? Jenn’s first thought was that he’d fled town, maybe north to the Navajo Nation, to avoid being arrested. But she doubted a man like Grierson would run. He probably had a hideout somewhere and was planning his next move. She couldn’t even begin to guess at what that might be. Fortunately, though, the police and Beaumonts had kept a sizeable force at the dorms, so Allison and the other refugees were safe.

  She reached a paved two-lane road and turned right, toward the house. At the copse of trees in the distance, which was little more than a vague shape in the dark, she’d turn right again, walk along the edge of the tree line, and then head back out into the fields. Given a choice, she would take the woods. Out here, without the cover of tall ponderosas, she felt too exposed.

  When she was halfway to the trees, barking echoed in the distance. It came from ahead—east. With Grierson missing and tensions higher than ever in Flagstaff, Sophie insisted that Cookie and Cream be taken out on patrol every night. They weren’t fierce dogs, but their noses and ears could sense someone coming long before a human guard could. The problem was, they barked at squirrels, owls, turkeys, bears, anything with a pulse.

  The bark, deep and throaty, belonged to Cream. Jenn lifted her hand to the mic clipped to her shirt, ready to call in and ask if everything was all right, but before her fingers found it, Cookie’s bark joined Cream’s. If the dogs had smelled an animal, it must have been big and it must have been close; normally, they shut up within a few seconds.

  Maggy’s voice roared through her earpiece: “I got movement. In the woods to the south. Two for sure.”

  Jenn froze in place, hand hovering above her mic. Her brain screamed at her, commanding her to call and ask how she could help, but right now, the channel had to remain open. Hands trembling, she waited for orders.

  “Copy,” Dylan said after an impossibly long second. “Jansen, Bryce, Yannick, on the house with Sophie and Ed. Stay there, wait for further instructions. Everyone else, on Maggie.”

  In a motion she’d practiced a hundred times, Jenn shifted her weapon so it was slung across her back, then hopped onto her bike. Her hands were so clammy they struggled to grip the handlebars. Crisp air blasted her face as she picked up speed. Her radio had gone quiet, but that was to be expected; too much chatter could give away the guards’ positions. Even so, the silence made her skin crawl.

  What was going on? More would-be thieves sneaking onto the property? Like that woman Jenn had caught, they might be here in search of supplies at the cabin or the house. Yet the franticness in Maggy’s speech convinced her that this was something else. Something worse.

  As she reached the edge of the fields and the beginning of the forest, gunfire erupted from her twelve o’clock.

  A bolt of adrenaline hit her bloodstream, narrowing her vision. These were no vagrants coming to steal food. Intuitively, she knew it was CFF. It had to be. Hopefully she was wrong, but if these past ten days had taught her one thing, it was that her gut instinct about Grierson was usually right. But why attack the farm? Because the Beaumonts helped the police?

  The gunfire continued, the shots blending together until she couldn’t tell them apart anymore. Her foot slipped on the pedal, but she kept pushing up the driveway to the house. She hated the idea of having to wait there instead of joining Dylan in the front lines, but Val always said that committing every last rifle to the defense was dangerous; a reserve was needed to plug gaps or move around the attacker’s flank. In this case, it might have to defend the Beaumonts’ home.

  Sophie waited on the porch with Ed. Both carried rifles. At the bottom of the steps were Bryce and Yannick. Jenn hopped off her bike before it had come to a complete stop.

  “I see three by the power lines!” another guard shouted over the radio.

  “Suppressive fire,” Dylan said calmly. “Pin them down.”

  The radio chatter continued. Each new report of additional attackers felt like a boot to the chest. How many people were out there? Including Sophie and Ed, there were fourteen guards on shift tonight. CFF couldn’t have brought more than that, right? How many security staff did Grierson employ at his ranch?

  Barking cut through the rumble of the shooting. Over it all, Sophie called out from the deck, “Get in here! Jansen, Bryce, top floor. Yannick, downstairs with me.”

  “It’s him,” Jenn said as she marched toward the house. “Grierson. It has to be.”

  Sophie scowled, spat to the side, but otherwise didn’t answer. Jenn knew the woman well enough to see that she had the same suspicions.

  “You think so?” Bryce asked. “Why would he . . .” He trailed off, his attention wandering to the south, where Jenn caught sight of an orange light filtering between the trees. “Is that fire?”

  Jenn’s stomach leaped into her throat. “The cabin!”

  Cursing loudly, Sophie descended the stairs, Ed hot on her heels.

  Realization struck Jenn like a bat to the teeth: there were two groups of attackers, and the ones exchanging shots with Dylan were only a ruse. CFF was here to destroy the cabin and the house.

  She broke into a run, and the others followed, Bryce’s heavy steps thundering behind her. The path between the house and the cabin wound right, but she went straight, into the woods; the trees would offer better cover and allow her to sneak up on whoever had set this fire. But she had to move quickly and catch them before they vanished into the forest, moved on the house, or attacked Dylan and the other guards from the rear.

  The orange light, broken up by the silhouettes of spindly ponderosas, grew in intensity. Visible even in the darkness, plumes of gray smoke rose into the sky. The acrid smell tickled her throat. She dodged a pine tree and vaulted over a downed trunk. A few steps later, she saw flames. They engulfed the front of the cabin. The crackling of burning wood joined Cream’s angry barks and the distant cacophony of the firefight.

  Near the clearing around the cabin but still safely among the trees, Jenn and her team fanned out, forming a line. She fell to a knee. As the stock of her rifle touched her shoulder, a humanoid shape passed in front of the fire. She squinted, trying to see a face. To the left, a second shape appeared, then tossed what looked like a bottle through the nearest window. An explosion erupted inside, and the flames thickened.

  Instantly, her brain recognized these people as hostile. Without hesitation, she depressed the trigger.

  Her first shot tore through the figure who’d thrown the Molotov cocktail. The claps of other rifles to her left and right joined in, and a mere heartbeat later, two bodies lay motionless in the dirt.

  As quickly as it began, the shooting stopped. She shifted behind the trunk of a tree and braced for return fire, but none came. Aside from the flames licking the cabin, there was no movement. Smoke dried her eyes, so she blinked to wet them. The only sound was the crackling of burning wood and the ringing in her ears.

  Sophie was the first to stand. She’d swapped out her hunting rifle for a pistol, which she swung in wide arcs as she crept out of the woods, Ed a few yards behind. They moved clockwise around the cabin. Jenn flicked her fingers, signaling for Bryce and Yannick to swing in the opposite direction. She stayed here to cover their backs.

  Only a few seconds later, Bryce, having completed a full circle, reappeared and waved for Jenn to join him. As she stepped into the clearing, the heat of the fire blasted her face. She could barely come to within fifty feet of the inferno.

  Bryce stood idly over the figure she’d gunned down. An AR lay a foot away from her outstretched hand, and a bloody hole adorned the right side of her chest. There was a second wound center mass, slightly below the sternum. Both would have been lethal.

  “Just the two?” she asked
.

  “Yeah,” Bryce said, then shook his head and corrected himself. “No, I mean three.”

  “Three?”

  “Another one over there.” He pointed across the cabin. “I think Sophie got him.”

  Jenn kicked away the dead woman’s weapon, just in case. When she caught sight of the nose ring and the blonde hair in a loose bun, she recalled Grierson’s black SUV rolling up to the farm. Three others had come with him, but she only saw two: the one with the tattoo on his neck and a woman who reminded Jenn a lot of the corpse at her feet.

  No, it was the same woman.

  The blood in her veins turned to ice, despite the waves of heat from the flames. The moment she heard the first gunshot tonight, she knew in her bones that CFF had fired it, but seeing this familiar face finally gave her the proof she needed: Vincent Grierson was a criminal and a killer. Since the protests began at McKay Village, there was never a doubt in her mind. Now, though, there was no excuse to treat him with any leniency. No longer could Liam or Gary or anyone else claim that he was merely capitalizing on events to push his message and whip up support; they’d see, as Jenn had from nearly the beginning, that he’d orchestrated everything.

  “She was with Grierson that day at the farm,” she told Bryce, repressing the urge to stomp on the woman’s face with her boot.

  Bryce’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “You sure?”

  “Hundred percent.” Through gritted teeth, she said into her radio, “Jenn for Dylan.”

  “Go ahead,” he answered. In the background, the firefight was loud, close, intimate. As always, Dylan’s tone was flat. Jenn couldn’t decide if it was comforting or unsettling.

  “It’s CFF who’s attacking us. Three of them just set the cabin on fire. We took them out but—”

  The roof collapsed in a shower of sparks. Bryce jumped back. Yannick, who was dragging one of the bodies away, dropped it to shield his face with his forearm. Ed’s hands were on his head as he watched the flames stretch into the sky.