She wasn’t nearly as hopeful as he was. “I just want a place to sit down.”
Gabe turned around to wave at them. “I can see it!” he yelled. “I can see it!”
They picked up their pace, eager to arrive at their final destination. Jones was panting as he ran. “You ready to put on a performance?” he asked.
All that buildup and all their hope was resting on Caroline’s ability to get them onto the base without being shot or arrested first. “I sure as hell hope so.”
She’d been to Camp Pendleton as a member of Congress, so she was somewhat familiar with her surroundings. It was a huge military facility and stopping at the main gate seemed to make the most sense. Though it was now late morning, there were no cars waiting in line. Instead of a giant sign greeting them, there was a small one that simply read California Republican Army: National Training Facility. She wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. Would some random California soldier have any idea what she was talking about? Maybe she’d been wrong about the entire thing.
“I don’t know about this,” Crunch whispered as they walked up to one of the kiosks.
“It’s fine,” Gabe said. “Just let Caroline do the talking.”
A soldier exited the kiosk, pointing his rifle at them. Shit. Maybe they should have picked a less conspicuous entrance.
“Hands up,” Caroline told the guys, stepping toward the soldier. “All of us.”
The soldier yanked her forward. “State your business.”
“I’m here to see the commanding officer,” she said.
He laughed. “Try again.”
Caroline could hear the guys behind her calling out to the soldier. She wanted to tell them to shut the fuck up. “May I speak to those gentlemen first?”
He let go of her. “Make it quick. Hands where I can see them, at all times.”
She motioned her friends farther back. She would have to play diplomat. “Step back, guys,” she called. “I got this.”
“No way,” Jones said.
“Yes way,” Caroline said.
“We ain’t letting you go with that guy alone,” he insisted.
“I’ll be fine.” She glanced over at Gig. He’d be the most likely to understand the hierarchy at play. “Help me out here.”
Gig waved his hands at the others. “Stay put,” he said. “Let her do her thing.”
The soldier grabbed her again. “Come on, then. My shift is done in ten minutes and I’d like to kick your asses out of here sooner rather than later.”
Wasn’t that a great sign. But he was leading her to the kiosk, so maybe there was hope. She saw a few random supplies scattered across the desk inside and knew she had an in. “Might I have a piece of paper?” Caroline asked.
The soldier eyed her suspiciously. “What?”
She gestured toward the desk. “Might I have a piece of paper?”
Another soldier appeared at her side. Two against one. “Give her the paper,” the other soldier said.
Maybe he could be her backup. “I need a pen too,” Caroline said.
“No shit,” the first soldier replied, handing her a pen and pad. “Make it quick. I ain’t got time for this bullshit today.”
She hastily scrawled a note on the paper and handed it back to him. “Here.”
His expression changed as he read what she had written. “This is old.”
“It took us a while to get here,” Caroline said tiredly. “Can we just talk to someone who can help us?”
The soldier showed the pad to the man at his side. “Check this out,” he said.
The other man smiled. “Well, fuck. Day just got interesting.” He grinned at her. “Our interrogators love visitors.”
Okay, now she was a little unsettled. But if they could get on the base, she knew they’d be fine. “Fantastic,” she said.
“All right,” the first soldier said, ripping the top page off the pad of paper and putting it in his pocket. “Name’s Abernathy, by the way. And you are?”
“Diana,” Caroline said instantly. “Diana Pascal.”
Abernathy gestured toward Jones, who was standing by himself and glaring at the rest of her friends. “And the assholes you brought with you?”
“They’re my crew. They can be trusted. Got here in one piece, didn’t we?”
“That you did,” Abernathy said. He glanced at the other soldier. “Looks like we gotta escort these folks over to the other side of the base.” He gave Caroline an apologetic look. “Afraid we’ve got to search you for weapons. And I’ve got no female guards around.”
Caroline instinctively put her hands against the wall and spread her feet apart. She could get through this. She’d think about freedom. Liberation. Safety. “Go ahead. I have nothing to hide.”
Abernathy quickly patted her down. “Gotta search your bag before I give it back.”
“There’s a gun in there,” she warned. She hoped he wouldn’t notice that it had been recently fired.
“Gotta confiscate. Policy.”
She wasn’t comfortable going into an unstable situation unarmed, but they hadn’t been likely to hold onto their guns forever. “Understood,” Caroline said. “My men are armed as well, but they will relinquish their weapons if you ask them nicely. Don’t go copping any feels, though.”
Abernathy laughed. “All right, then.”
* * * * *
Abernathy piled into a Jeep with her, with the other soldier escorting the guys. The base was just as expansive as Caroline had remembered but seemed very sparsely populated. Everything looked the same except it was obvious that many of the buildings were no longer occupied. No other soldiers or personnel greeted them as they drove across the base to a large building she didn’t recognize, where Abernathy said they’d be screened and questioned. It all sounded very cryptic and creepy, but they didn’t have much choice.
Caroline felt naked without her firearm. With each additional moment they spent on the base she was starting to realize that if there was a rebellion, it was either remarkably well hidden or it barely existed at all. All of the hope she’d poured into the last eleven months was slowly melting away.
Abernathy was greeted by another male soldier at the entrance of the building. The Jeep carrying the guys had disappeared. Another uncomfortable development. Her friends were gone and there were no other people to be seen.
He handed the piece of paper to the man. “She gave us this,” he said. “You know what to do.”
The other soldier’s grip on her upper arm seemed a little harsher than necessary. “Come with me.”
Caroline tried to turn around and look behind her as he started dragging her down the hall. “What about my friends?”
“They’ll be fine,” he said, leading her down a series of hallways before grabbing her knapsack off her shoulder and shoving her inside a room. Caroline heard the lock click behind her.
Oh, shit. This was not good.
Chapter Thirty-One
The Rebel Base
Caroline sat at the table for what seemed like an eternity. It was quiet in the room but all she could hear was the sound of that lock clicking over and over again. Not like that would make her paranoid or anything. No, not a chance. She looked around. Wasn’t much to the place. The mirror on the side wall was an obvious cover for whoever or whatever was behind it. Perhaps they thought it was more personal than a camera.
Maybe this was a test. See how long a person would wait before they’d cave and start banging on the door begging to be let out. Caroline had to remind herself that not everything was a mindfuck. Then again, she hadn’t been reassured by the people she’d come into contact with. To top it off, they had her passport and her firearm. She didn’t have a thing to protect herself save for her wits and possibly her fists.
The door swung open and an unfriendly looking man walked into the room. He wore what appeared to be a dress uniform, and was large around the middle with a greasy face and an even greasier expression. He tossed her passport on
the table.
“Diana Marie Pascal,” he said.
Caroline would need to sound confident. Convincing. And completely and totally sane. “That’s my name,” she said. The lie came quite easily. Easier than she had anticipated.
“I don’t recognize it.”
“Should you?”
“Most people who have the old password can be tracked. You cannot.”
They seemed hung up on that. Who knew how many times the language had changed since then? Would it work in her favor or to her detriment? “Maybe I didn’t want to be found.” She crossed her arms, leaning back in her chair. “And you are?”
“My name is not important.”
What a tool. She already didn’t like him.
“We don’t get many women in here,” he said. “Especially women leading an entire group of people.”
Great. She was some sort of novelty. “I live to defy stereotypes.”
“You’re the one in charge?”
Now Caroline knew why she’d been separated from her friends. “I guess so.”
“That’s what the others told us.”
Had they already been questioned? What had they said? “Why aren’t we being interrogated together?”
“You ask a lot of questions for someone who needs to spend more time answering them,” the man said. He picked up the paper she’d used at the entry checkpoint. “There is no week nor day nor hour when tyranny may not enter upon this country, if the people lose their roughness and spirit of defiance,” he read.
“Walt Whitman,” Caroline said. “He was more than Leaves of Grass.”
“I know who said it.”
What a jackass. “I’m impressed you could decipher my handwriting.”
The man, whom she’d decided to call Potbelly, glared at her. “You got a smart mouth, lady.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re a bit cocky, given your situation.”
Caroline smiled pleasantly, placing her hands on the table. Maybe she could try charming him. “What situation might that be?”
He frowned at her. “You seem to be under the impression that I find you credible.”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
He waved the passport in her face. “This is fake.”
“The hell it is,” she said angrily.
“What’s your social security number?”
She’d spent hours, maybe even days, memorizing all the information in all of her documents. From the passport to the driver’s license to the social security card. And when asked a direct question, it all flew out of her head. Her backstory had been wiped clean and it had happened at the most inconvenient time. She racked her brain but came up with nothing. Not even a starting point.
“I don’t remember,” she mumbled. “It’s in my knapsack.”
“Bullshit,” he said. “We searched your bag. It’s not in there.”
Had she lost the card? She couldn’t recall. So few new things came easily to her anymore. “I don’t remember,” she repeated.
“Strange.” Potbelly flipped through the passport again. “A woman your age can’t remember her own social security number.”
“I-”
“Who are you?”
She’d thought about this for months. What she’d do and what she’d say when she got in this situation. How she’d do her damndest to get them to buy anything she needed to sell to get her friends safely inside the shelter of the rebellion. Her hope dwindled with each moment she spent in this man’s presence.
“Diana Pascal,” she said dully.
Potbelly smiled. “I’ll let you get away with that for now. Why don’t you have an online footprint?”
Caroline cleared her throat, attempting to regain her confidence. She could do this. She could sell it. “My men and I have been keeping a low profile,” she said. “It’s been hard to know who to trust in the States.”
He waved the paper in her face. “Where did you get this password?”
“I told you,” she said impatiently. “I got that a long time ago.”
“How?”
What was she going to say? That she’d created it? That it was one of the few things that only the top members of the Underground would have? That it was so precious, so secret, and so very dangerous to know that she hadn’t even told her friends about it? Like he’d believe that. She wasn’t ready to go down that road yet. She decided to tell a lie and knew it was a stupid idea the moment the words escaped her lips.
“I got it from a message board,” she mumbled.
“Which one?”
Caroline looked down at the table. Five minutes in and she’d fucked up already. “How do I know if I can trust you?”
Potbelly laughed. “You don’t have a choice.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t beat around the bush. What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t want you to say anything,” he said. “Because I don’t believe a single thing you’ve told me.”
“Why do you think I’m here?”
“’You could be a spy,” he said.
Caroline couldn’t help herself. She laughed. “Are you shitting me?”
“That password is old. Everyone has it by now. Including the American government.”
Was he lying? How had they gotten it? She and her friends were screwed if that was true. “I had to keep a low electronic profile,” she said. “My apologies for not keeping up to date on all the activities of a rebellion brewing all the way across the country.”
“I don’t care for your tone,” he said.
She was out of practice when it came to holding her temper. “Fuck what you care for,” she snapped. “This is getting old.”
He shifted in his seat. “We have no way of knowing your intentions. Right now you look like a suspect individual.”
“Do you get a lot of spies here?” she asked.
He leaned forward again. “First, that’s none of your fucking business and second, you could be working hand in hand with United States operatives. Old password, fake ID, bullshit answers. You sure look like a spy to me. And not a very good one, either.”
Caroline rubbed her hands nervously, gazing down at her fingers. Her practically claw-like fingers. It was a miracle she could use them, but she could. For the worthwhile things, like the weapon she no longer had access to.
“I do not work for that – for Santos,” she said coldly. “I’d kill him with my bare hands if I could.”
A chill ran through her as she realized the significance of her words. Fuck, she really meant it. What did that say about who she’d become?
Potbelly stood up. “We’ve exhausted this conversation,” he said. “I’m going to tell my superiors that I feel it has been useless.”
He didn’t believe her. Whoever was listening behind the glass didn’t believe her. The guards at the gate probably hadn’t believed her, either. If they didn’t buy her story, they weren’t going to believe the guys. Who knew where she and her friends would end up? In jail, dead, or worse?
“I have money,” she blurted out. “Access to lots of money.”
One of the few things she could remember with remarkable clarity. That fucking account number. Even if she couldn’t recall the important things. Those millions of dollars were sitting there unused. Maybe that would turn the tide in her favor. The guy looked like he could use some cash.
Potbelly smiled. “Are you trying to bribe me?”
“No,” Caroline said hastily.
“I think you’re trying to bribe me.”
Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck. Every time she opened her mouth she made it worse. She had to fix this. “No,” she repeated. “I’m just, uh, trying to help the rebels.”
“Right.”
Caroline rubbed her hands together again. This was her only shot at safety. At doing what she’d set out to do before she’d been captured. Only one option left. She wasn’t entirely sure she could trust these people but she had no other choice. She had to play her trump car
d. If it didn’t work, she and her friends were well and truly fucked.
“Tell your leadership that I have information that could be valuable to the rebellion,” she said.
The potbellied rebel laughed. “Yeah, right.”
“Look,” she said. “I’m not an idiot. I know these are two-way mirrors and we’re being monitored. I want to speak to them.”
“You can speak to me,” he said.
“That’s not good enough. I want someone in a position of authority.”
He leered at her. “I am the authority. At least in this situation.”
If she was going to jump in she may as well keep swimming toward the deep end. Better to drown there than in three feet of water. “Do you want to know why I gave you that password?” Caroline asked. “Because I created it.”
Potbelly laughed. “Try again.”
“I’m serious,” she said vehemently, rising from her chair. “I helped to form the first underground movement on the East Coast.”
The look he gave her let her know that he remained unconvinced. “What are you playing at?”
She could do this. As long as she remembered who she was. Because as much as she tried to be someone else, she’d never truly forgotten. Caroline shifted her shoulders. “I speak the truth. I am not Diana Pascal. I am the former First Lady of Pennsylvania and I insist that I and my men speak with your commanding officer.”
The rebel crossed the room quickly and leaned in close to her face, close enough for her to feel his hot, disgusting breath on her skin. He reeked. “Bull – fucking – shit.”
Caroline pushed away from him and began marching toward the door. She had to play this right. Act like she didn’t care, like his intimidation tactics were useless. “If you don’t want our assistance, we’ll be happy to go on our way.”
The rebel pulled his handgun out of its holster and pointed it at her. How had she missed that he was armed? Yet another mistake.
“You aren’t going anywhere,” he said.
She stared at the gun. It was large. Much larger than a standard law enforcement service weapon. It looked like a Desert Eagle, very high caliber. She knew what those guns could do. How unsettling. Caroline smirked anyway. “Overcompensating for something?” she asked sweetly.
The Bellator Saga: The First Trilogy (Dissident, Conscience, and Sojourn) Page 92