by Jim Heskett
Anders stepped to Nadall. “Excuse me.”
Nadall ceased barking orders to the men and tossed a flat smile at Anders. “Yessir, what can I do for you?” His tone was less than respectful.
“Why are those men over there not participating in drills?”
“We run in two divisions, and Division B is on rec time right now. They have no duties until after lunch.”
Anders seethed. “Rec time? Maybe you don’t understand the danger we’re facing from Chicago right now. We can’t afford to have the remnants of America’s army goofing off for half the day.”
“Sir, they are not goofing off, they are on rec time, as I already told you. We run in rotations because that’s how we’ve always done it.”
Anders knew the line not to be crossed loomed close, but couldn’t help himself. “Castillo wouldn’t stand for this. And I won’t stand for it. When he’s gone, you answer to me, understand?”
Nadall crossed his tattooed arms in front of his chest. “Oh, of course, sir. But when we have two hundred men and women in our ranks and only one hundred rifles for them to clean and assemble, what would you like for me to have them do? One hold the rifle while the other one cleans it?”
Anders gritted his teeth. “Your pattern of disrespect is noted, soldier. You may think you’re a big deal around here, but you’re nothing but a little grunt to me.”
Nadall said nothing and held his stance, then rocked on his feet a little, as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
Anders wished he’d brought a gun with him to the tarmac. He’d blow a hole in this insolent asshole’s head and show all of these thugs and criminals how the quality of respect had to be earned, not bestowed by virtue of a commander’s absence.
“Anything else I can do for you, Mr. Vice President?”
Anders walked away without a word. He would return with his pistol and show everyone he was not afraid to take charge. He’d flushed millions of Americans down the toilet to make this country a better place, and if one more had to die today, then so be it.
With no electricity throughout most of the airport and therefore no elevators, he had to climb a service stairway at the back of concourse A. By the time he’d climbed all 88 steps, his legs ached, but he felt no less determined that an example needed to be made of Nadall. Power belonged where it could be demonstrated.
When he got to his room, he rummaged through his belongings until he’d found both his pistol and the boxes of ammunition. Hadn’t fired a gun in three years, but no one had to know that.
The troops kept their armaments locked up, and only Castillo had the key. Probably Nadall had it now. That was a recipe for mutiny that should earn Nadall a bullet to the head, let alone for everything else he’d done.
“I’ve made a decision,” said LaVey, from behind.
“What is it, Edward?” Anders said.
“I’m leaving.”
Anders met LaVey’s eyes. When he did, LaVey frowned at the gun in his hand.
“What are you going to do with that?”
“I’m going to teach that insolent bastard Nadall a lesson. Going to regain the respect of the men and get us back on track.”
LaVey shook his head. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. All of this is so out of hand, I don’t even know where to begin. At war with Chicago? They’re part of our own people, Peter. They’re Americans. We can’t keep killing our own citizens if we ever expect to lead them someday.”
“Chalmers and her kind are not our people. They’re rebels, and their rebellion needs to be squashed. How can the American people trust us if we let rebels run through their streets?”
“I’ve had enough. I don’t want to argue about it, and I thought I owed you the courtesy of telling you.”
Anders felt a stress headache bubble up from the back of his head and worm into his temples. “Where the hell do you think you’re going to go, huh? You know you’re public enemy number one out there in the real world. You step one foot into Dallas or Atlanta or New York, someone’s going to string you up by your neck for everyone to see.”
“I don’t believe that. All I need is for the people to listen.”
“But they won’t. And you can’t go. As far as we know, you are the only politician from the old government still alive. If you’re not there to help us start over when we finally get back to DC, who will be? Who’s going to lead this country when we retake Washington?”
“I will. But I won’t be doing it with you.”
Anders slipped the gun into the back of his waistband and untucked his shirt to cover it. “Please come with me. I want to show you something.”
“No. I have had enough of you managing me and plying me with your honeyed words.”
“’Honeyed words?’ Where did you get that?”
LaVey seemed unfazed. “I’ve made my decision, and I’m leaving. I would ask that when I leave, you hold off on your assault on Chicago until I’ve had time to reconcile things.”
“Okay, I hear you, and I understand how you feel. I’ll make you a deal. You hear me out for two minutes, and if you don’t like what I have to say, we’ll go our separate ways.”
LaVey pursed his lips.
“Please,” Anders said. “The future of our country depends on it.”
LaVey turned and walked out the door, and Anders followed.
“Let’s go to the parking garage,” Anders said. “I need you to look out at those purple mountains’ majesty while I give you my speech.”
“Fine,” LaVey said as Anders took the lead and guided him back to the terminal, to present his last-ditch effort to keep the shreds of democracy together.
11
The transport left Coyle and Logan east of the windy town of St. Francis in northern Kansas. One of those little places with a handful of stoplights and one diner, where the mayor was also the police chief and the volunteer fire department. At least, if that man was still alive.
Coyle had to spend the rest of the antibiotics to pay for the journey. The cost of gasoline had gone up, apparently. Finding a way to finance the remainder of the journey to Denver was a problem he still had to solve.
As the car they’d ridden in left them to speed back east, Coyle eyed his traveling companion. The kid looked rattled, and had since Chicago.
“What’s on your mind?”
Logan started walking, and took a few seconds to answer. “I keep thinking about that woman in Chalmers’ office. Setting herself on fire like that. It’s so crazy, I can’t even process it.”
“Seen a lot of crazy things like that back in my day. I didn’t know Chalmers or what she’d done specifically, but she sounded as nasty as any dictator I ever read about.”
“You’d hear stories about stuff, but it was always just stories. Dave and Isabelle worked with her. They would always tell me it’s not about who’s good and who’s bad, it’s about who gives you the best chance to survive; that thinking any other way was old-world and would get me killed.”
The sound of motorcycles in the distance carried across the plains as they walked past a sign that read Welcome to St. Francis. “And you don’t agree with that?” Coyle said.
Logan shrugged. “I guess I never thought of the way things are now as being permanent, you know? They seem to accept the world as it is. It’s not the same for me.”
How the kid had survived this long with that kind of denial of reality, Coyle had no idea. “The world’s always been changing. We’re in the middle of a big one right now.”
Logan stopped walking. “Do you think if you find LaVey and deliver him to Washington, it’ll make any difference?”
Coyle wanted to tell him yes, to wipe that fear off Logan’s face. “Maybe. I do know the world’s not better off with him running around, causing more havoc. We do what we can do, and leave God to sort out the rest.”
Logan nodded, and they meandered through town with their heads down until they saw the crossing station, which was less a “station” and m
ore like two convenience stores on opposite sides of the road, with a trash heap covered in chicken wire in the middle and a few motorcycles patrolling the nearby area. A tall fence ran in each direction, as far as he could see. That fence would be electrified. They usually were.
Without anything decent to trade, he considered walking up north until they found a creek that ran west, and maybe following that into Colorado. They could possibly swim under the fence and hope to avoid electrocution that way. But it was at least a hundred and fifty miles to Denver, so they needed a ride. The nights were turning colder, and if there was the possibility that Chalmers’ army still intended to march on Denver without her, they didn’t have enough time to walk.
“What are you thinking?” Logan said as they spied the trash heap from the front porch of an antique shop on Main street.
“We need a car.”
“How are we supposed to get that?”
“I don’t have an answer to that yet,” Coyle said as he looked up and down the street. St. Francis had turned out to be a ghost town, and the only vehicles in operation seemed to be in the possession of the crossing station people.
“I was thinking about the day they made that announcement about the meteor,” Logan said. “You know, how it was all a big hoax, but nobody knew why yet.”
“What about it?”
“I was with a bunch of my friends, and we were out drinking by the radio tower in Mounds. Somebody called somebody and told us. All my friends started shooting their guns in the air. Bunch of dumbasses.”
Coyle looked at his young companion. “And you didn’t?”
Logan bowed his head, blushing a little. “I wasn’t into guns. Hated the fact that we had to carry them.”
“Putting guns in everyone’s hands isn’t the smartest idea.”
“Where were you when it happened?” Logan said.
“California, with a shotgun in my mouth.”
“Safe to say you didn’t pull that trigger? You know, since your face is still intact, and everything.”
Coyle picked at a strip of weathered and graying paint on the antique shop’s front door. “Heard my next-door neighbor scream, and I went over to see if she was okay. Used the last two shells to take the punk down that was trying to rape her. I didn’t even think about what I was doing; it just happened.”
“Lucky, huh?”
Coyle grunted. “Sure. Luck.”
A man on one of the motorcycles drove down the street, eying them both as he passed.
“Hmm. That’s weird,” Logan said.
“What?”
“Usually, the border guards wear neutral colors. They don’t belong to any particular gang or state, but they have something like a union. The crossing stations are… independently franchised, I guess you could say.”
“So?”
“Did you notice the symbol on that guy’s jacket? Like a cross but with two arms, and that lazy-8 symbol below it.”
“I don’t understand what that has to do with us getting into Colorado.”
Logan shrugged. “Not sure, but I don’t know if these guys are station crossing guards. I think they’re someone else, like some other kind of gang.”
Coyle bit his lower lip. “Doesn’t matter. We still have to cross, either way. Let’s go.”
“Shouldn’t we talk about the plan first?”
“I don’t have one.”
Logan snickered, but worry darkened his face.
Coyle adjusted the strap of the SMG he’d appropriated from a man back in Chicago, made sure the safety was off. “We’re going to ask nicely to cross, and also borrow a vehicle.”
Logan took a deep breath as they left the antique shop. “So, back at the south gate, I asked you why you were doing this, and you didn’t answer me.”
“That’s correct.”
“So why are you doing this?”
Coyle sighed. The kid wasn’t going to stop asking. “Atonement, that’s why.”
Logan looked down at his feet and Coyle felt a little relief that his companion had no follow-up questions.
As they neared the trash heap, a half dozen people in matching jackets emerged from the back side, guns raised. In the middle of the pack stood a pasty-faced man in full riot gear, everything except for the helmet.
“That’s far enough,” the pasty man said when they were within fifty feet. “What can we do for you?”
Coyle surveyed the other men. Several of them wore grisly burn marks on their faces and arms. But the important thing was that they all wore Russian AK-74 assault rifles, and every one of them had their fingers on the triggers. Unlike Chicago, these didn’t appear to be trained and disciplined men, which was both a benefit and a liability.
“We need to cross into Colorado,” Coyle said.
The pasty man and two others climbed down the trash heap toward them. When they stood a few feet away, Logan cleared his throat.
“You’re not crossing guards,” Logan said.
The pasty man grinned. “That is correct. My name is Victor.”
“Are you in charge here?” Coyle said.
“I am, now that our mistress has died. These are my people. We’ve taken over this facility, and the price to cross has changed.”
“We have seeds,” Coyle said. “Spices, too, and a little bit of gasoline. We will trade what we have if you can let us cross and get us to Denver. We’d prefer to buy a car or motorcycle outright, but we’ll accept a ride if that’s all you can offer in return.”
Victor and the two men aside him chuckled. “We are not interested in spices, no no no. We require something much more meaningful.”
“Fine. What do you want?”
Victor leered at Logan. “He will do. He’s a little old, but we have to make the best of what we have in these circumstances.”
Logan’s mouth dropped open and he threw his eyes at Coyle. Maybe Coyle looked as if he was considering the offer because Logan started stammering.
“You can’t have him,” Coyle said. “He’s with me.”
Victor licked his lips. “Are you sure?”
“It’s not up for debate.”
Victor flicked his hand back at the east end of town. “Then you have nothing to offer us and our business here is done. I suggest you turn around and leave St. Francis. The next crossing station is Nebraska to the north, or along I-70 to the south. Good day.”
“Wait,” Coyle said as Victor and his men turned to leave. “We need to get to Colorado, and I don’t want this to be difficult. You’re going to give us what we want and none of this kidnapping crap. We’ve got good items to trade. The spices are fresh.”
One of Victor’s men aimed the nose of his weapon at Coyle’s face.
“Who do you think you’re talking to?” Victor said, with fire in his eyes. “I’m letting you walk away. Do you not comprehend how gracious I’m being?”
Coyle watched as the three men back at the trash heap started to come down on the near side, guns up.
“No, I don’t know who I’m talking to. But I don’t give a crap,” Coyle said, and he dropped to a squat. As a spurt of bullets sailed over his head, he whipped out his SMG and cut a path of bullets across the knees of the three men, who all fell to the ground screaming.
The men at the trash heap started to run, and Coyle leaped forward. He hoisted one of the guards up to use as a human shield, and almost fell over backward because of the burned man’s girth. He started shooting at the three remaining guards, but he was off-balance and couldn’t aim.
“Get a gun,” he shouted at Logan.
Logan dove for one of the kneeless men’s AK-74s as bullets ricocheted all around him. Using the heap of a body as cover, he fired off a few volleys toward the rushing men and cut down two of them.
Coyle took a deep breath and squeezed the trigger as he exhaled. The last guard fell.
Motorcycles revved, growing louder. Victor was still alive, writhing in agony next to the dead ones.
“Move it, move it,�
�� Coyle said. “The rest of them will be on us in a minute.”
He snatched a gun out of a dead man’s hands and ran with everything he had left.
12
Anders and LaVey emerged from the terminal and crossed to the rooftop of the Denver Airport parking garage. LaVey turned his nose up and sniffed the air. “Have you ever noticed that it smells like cow dung before it’s going to rain or snow here?”
“Yeah, that’s because the wind shifts and blows over the cow towns up north.”
LaVey rubbed his chin. “Is that right?”
“It is.”
LaVey nodded at an old station wagon sitting next to a torn-up tent someone had long ago abandoned. Then he sat on the hood. “Okay, then, Peter, you said you needed two minutes. I’m ready to listen to the death rattle of this partnership. If this is a sales pitch, it had better be spectacular.”
Anders tried to smile. “Sounds like you’re not going to be too open-minded about what I have to say. You remember that old quote about contempt prior to investigation?”
“You’re wasting time.”
Anders rubbed his hands together. “Okay, then, I’ll get right to it. Do you remember when we first hired Beth, and brought her out to your office in Albany?”
“Yes.”
“Well, did you have any idea then how ambitious she could be?”
“I suppose. I knew she had her sights set higher than being a member of my staff, if that’s what you mean.”
“Right,” Anders said. “And you remember how I was the one who recommended we bring her on board?”
“Yes. Get to your point, please.”
“Beth was the most determined and resourceful person I’d ever seen. Now, why would I insist we hire her, when I knew that she would probably look for ways to stab me in the back and replace me as your chief of staff?”
“I have no idea.”
“Because I know you. I knew then that no matter how talented or successful Beth would become, you would never jettison me for her.”
LaVey sighed. “If you’re trying to tug on my heart strings, it’s not going to work. I don’t believe your spiel anymore. You’re almost out of time, so if you’ve got a plan B, tell it to me quickly.”