The Liar

by Bobby Adair

  “You don’t need to do this!” Chad wailed, eyes still closed.

  Summer looked away.

  In a swift move, Tommy snatched up the tool by the handle and drove a nail through Chad's hand, pinning it to the table.

  Chad screamed.

  Just to be sure Chad didn’t tear his hand open in a fit, Tommy took a length of the steel strapping, laid it across Chad’s wrist, and drove a few nails in each end. Chad wouldn’t be going anywhere.

  ***

  Leaving Chad time to wind down, Tommy had Summer follow him over to the TV where he took the remote out of the dead guy’s hand.

  “Was that necessary?” hissed Summer.

  “I don’t know,” Tommy answered. “I only learned one way to do this kind of shit.” He unmuted the television, and together they watched as a story was unfolded for them in colorful graphics and angry faces.

  At some point in the wee hours of the night, a nuclear weapon riding on the tip of an ICBM launched from somewhere in Asia, detonated over Anaheim. Ground zero was estimated to lie a half-mile due west of Disneyland. Every talking head on Hazelton’s propaganda channel—the only news channel still broadcasting—agreed on one thing: America’s haters had chosen its moment of weakness to try and topple the giant with a feeble kill shot.

  Impeached, but still in office, President Hazelton took swift retaliatory action. He notified Russia and China of his intentions using the most bellicose language, and he launched preplanned conventional and nuclear strike packages against North Korea, Pakistan, and Iran. Hundreds of cruise missiles, fighter-bombers, and strategic bombers along with two hundred and thirty-seven nuclear warheads demonstrated the strength of America’s resolve and Hazelton’s commitment to meet force with apocalyptic might.

  Every major population center in those three countries had been smashed to radioactive tinder and was aflame. Every known launch site and nuclear weapons storage or production facility had been obliterated. Every significant military installation was now glowing ash.

  It hadn’t even taken twenty-four full hours for America’s unfettered war machine to reduce three sovereign nations to levels of destruction not seen since the closing days of World War II. Twenty-four hours to incinerate two hundred million people, and put a hundred million more in death’s waiting room as radiation sickness broke down their bodies and starvation came for the survivors when winter set in.

  Not one of those three countries would recover. Ever.

  “My God,” mumbled Summer.

  Tommy didn’t have any words.

  “Why Pakistan?” asked Summer. “I thought we got along with them.”

  Tommy had no guesses.

  “What happens now?” she asked, absently.

  “Nuclear winter.”

  ***

  Chad quieted down, mostly, and laid his face on the table. He whispered to himself, prayers or curses. Wishes maybe. Perhaps trying to wake himself from a nightmare. Tommy couldn’t tell and didn’t care. He knew Chad understood that reality’s nasty bite wasn’t an abstraction on a spreadsheet, it was blood, bone, and merciless pain. He’d cooperate when Tommy was ready to talk to him again.

  “Are we all going to die?” Summer asked as she stood, still staring at the TV and its talking heads beating the trashcan lids and doing their best to scare America straight. The real enemies were out there. Americans were at war with them over there, not here with each other.

  “Not today,” answered Tommy.

  “What is nuclear winter? Isn’t it radioactive stuff falling from the sky?”

  “No,” answered Tommy. “Not really. It’s theoretical. It has to do with ash and particulates being blown into the upper atmosphere, like when a big volcano erupts.”

  “So jets can’t fly?” said Summer. “Like when that one erupted in Iceland?”

  “And global temperatures drop,” explained Tommy. “They measure lower temps after every major volcano blows. If enough crap makes its way into the upper atmosphere, there’s no summer next year.”

  “Or the year after,” whined Chad, apparently listening to the conversation, “or even for a decade or two.”

  Choosing his words carefully for ominous effect, Tommy nudged Summer. “It’s time we get busy with Chad.”

  ***

  Tommy stood across the table from Chad. Summer seated herself at Chad’s computer in the chair beside Tommy.

  “Now, know I’m serious,” Tommy told Chad. “I’m not going to lie to you or bluff you, or scare you. You do what I say. You answer my questions, honestly and concisely. And if I have any doubt at all—if you hesitate at all—I’ll put another nail in your hand. When I’m done with this hand, I’ll start on the other.”

  Starting to cry again, Chad nodded.

  Tommy scooted the nail gun over on the table so it lay right in front of Chad. "Pull yourself together. Let’s start with your passwords."

  Through his tears, Chad directed Summer to a file he kept on his computer that listed every application and website he kept passwords for.

  Tommy noticed she looked a little pale, but her jaw was set. She was determined to see this through.

  Tommy asked, “How many 704 guys are in Summit County?”

  “About four hundred and seventy,” answered Chad, as he panicked. “Please, please, I honestly don’t know the exact number.”

  “Where is the exact number, with names, and addresses? Everything?”

  Chad told Summer how to navigate to a cloud-based folder on his computer. “It’s a collaborative space. We keep everything there.”

  Tommy glanced over at Summer. As she checked, her eyes lit up.

  “Everything’s here? This phone list?” she asked Chad. “These are the sat-phones with the two-letter codes?”

  Chad nodded as he sagged and looked at the nail stuck through his hand.

  Summer opened the file, scrolled down, found what she was looking for, and then picked up Chad’s sat-phone. “RM,” she told Tommy. “That was the pair of initials on the phone Allan was using.”

  “Barry’s guy?” Tommy asked.

  She walked over to stand by the window as she dialed. With a sat-phone, she needed a clear line of sight to the sky.

  Tommy waited.

  A moment later, someone answered.

  Chapter 23

  Tommy seated himself in Summer’s empty chair in front of the laptop. “You remember me, don’t you Chad?”

  Chad was reluctant, yet he nodded.

  “Yeah, I figured.” Tommy moused through the files in the shared folder. “When we were talking with your friend back at the gym—”

  “He wasn’t my friend.”

  “Let’s skip that shit, okay? Back in that office, when Summer’s name came up, you said she was an A-lister. What does that mean?”

  “The lists were prioritized into—”

  “The detainee lists?” Tommy asked. “The people you wanted to pick up?”

  “Not me personally.”

  “Chad,” Tommy reminded him, “we both know who we’re talking about.”

  “It was the list of people to be detained,” said Chad. “We just called it the list.”

  “And A-listers?”

  “The list was divided into five classifications, A through E.”

  Tommy made the obvious guess. “A being highest priority?”

  “Can I have some water and some Tylenol, please? For the pain.”

  “That would kind of defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it? Answer.”

  Chad looked at his skewered hand. “You don’t have to be cruel. I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

  “Yet here we are, and you aren’t answering my questions.” Tommy reached over and laid a hand on the nail gun.

  “No,” Chad begged. “Please.”

  Summer stepped outside and closed the door behind.

  “The classifications?” Tommy asked.

  “A was the highest,” Chad confirmed. “And so on.”

  “And Summe
r was an A because?”

  “She’s politically active. People listened to her.”

  “People on the other side, you mean.”

  Chad nodded.

  Tommy turned the computer to face Chad, pointing at a file. "This is the A-list right here?"

  Chad nodded again.

  Tommy opened it up. “How many people on the lists altogether?”

  “A thousand, maybe fifteen hundred. I’m not sure.”

  “Jesus.” Tommy shook his head. “You picked up all those people?”

  “They couldn’t get them all,” said Chad. “Look at the list.”

  Tommy had the spreadsheet open. It contained columns for names, phone numbers, social media links, home and work addresses, vehicle makes and models, as well as driver’s license numbers. It contained family members and associates. "Where did you get all this information?"

  Chad was looking at the table. "Frank set us up with the data broker. I don't know anything about that kind of stuff. Somebody—a national group—collects data on every American.” Chad looked up to see how Tommy was taking the info.

  “This isn’t new,” Tommy told him. “Go on.”

  “They know everything. Whoever sent us the data had already run an algorithm against it. They know who is likely to lean our way. Who to recruit and who is likely to join. They know this nationally. They know which cops, which politicians, and which military officers would support a reshaping of the government outside the broken political process.”

  “Outside the political process?” Tommy thought about punching Chad in the face but he knew those weren’t his words.

  “Because they recruited within the military, the officers we needed on duty this weekend were made available. They have the bases with the weapons. Soldiers who don’t support us or who were likely to go AWOL in the face of a political shift are off-duty. For the most part. That’s why you don’t see truckloads of soldiers in Spring Creek trying to restore order.”

  “And?” asked Tommy. “That’s it?”

  “They’re consolidating our power within the military first. Once that’s done, they’ll come out on our side and all of this pointless local violence will come to an end.”

  “And here,” Tommy asked, “for the people in Spring Creek, you have all that information, too? That’s where this list came from?”

  “For everyone in Summit County,” answered Chad. “But what you need to understand, Mr. Joss, is most people just go with the flow. They don’t care who’s in charge.”

  Tommy didn’t want to believe Chad’s story, but he feared it was true. “What about me? I’m not politically active. How did I get your list?”

  “You were an E-lister.” Chad gulped. “You’re related to someone in a higher classification.”

  Tommy found Emma’s name, and saw his name and Faith’s name’s in the family columns as father and step-mother. Real mom, deceased. Aunt, deceased. “What’s this mean here, under the holding location? There’s an X.”

  “She’s at the jail,” said Chad. “Downtown.”

  Tommy decided to confirm a guess. “With the policemen and sheriff’s deputies who wouldn’t come over to your side.”

  “Yes,” answered Chad.

  “Disposition?” Tommy asked. “What’s this column mean?”

  “Nobody was supposed to be harmed,” Chad told him. “This wasn’t supposed to—”

  Tommy laid his hand back on the nail gun. "You just thought you guys would GI Joe your way into a coup, carrying your guns and wearing your stupid jackets, and nobody was going to mind? That nobody was going to get hurt. You, Chad, who sat in that room while people were being brought in one at a time and tortured? That sounds like a lie to me."

  “Please, don’t,” he begged. “It wasn’t supposed to be violent. Not—” Chad laid his head on the table, and cried. “That’s not what they told us. It’s not what we signed up for. We were trying to save the country. It—” Chad blubbered some more. “Things just happened.”

  “And you went along with it?”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Chad pleaded. “It just happened.”

  “Disposition,” Tommy told him. “There’s a blank here by Emma’s name, tell me what that means?”

  “Blank isn’t one of the codes,” Chad answered. “I don’t know what it means. I just know where she’s supposed to be.”

  “So she could be dead.”

  "No," cried Chad. "Other names—they say ‘Term'—they're deceased. I don't know what the blank means. Maybe they don't have her."

  "Lie!" Tommy scrolled down the A-list. He sorted it by location. Some locations listed everyone as ‘Term.' Tommy's anger started to grow as he quietly counted. "Forty-seven dead just on this list alone, Chad."

  Chad didn’t respond.

  Tommy located Emma’s name again, listed at location X, of course. Thirteen other names, all girls, all between the ages of fourteen and sixteen, were in the same location, and none had a disposition status. Tommy recognized two of the names, Emma’s friends from school, both pretty girls, just like Emma. And in that moment, some pieces of the puzzle started to make sense in a very, very terrible way.

  Tommy jumped to his feet, rage boiling. He picked up the nail gun, deciding where Chad needed his next hole.

  “Please?” wailed Chad. “I’m telling you everything I know.”

  Summer rushed back into the room. “Tommy, Tommy. Don’t.”

  Tommy didn't know for sure what was happening to Emma, but he knew the circumstances looked ugly enough to justify beating Chad to death.

  “We need him,” Summer told Tommy, hands on his shoulders, holding him back.

  Everything in Tommy's eyes was red. His temper was loose, and as much as he wanted to kill something, he knew he had to calm himself back into the world of the rational. His fist balled and his jaw clenched. He took deep, slow breaths.

  “Let me handle this,” suggested Summer. “Go outside. Walk around the house. Get the side-by-side out of the garage. We need that next if we’re going back into Spring Creek.”

  Without a word, Tommy marched toward the stairs.

  ***

  Thinking about the jail and how he was going to get inside, Tommy's anger simmered. No easy solution presented itself.

  He opened the garage, and looked over the side-by-side, a red and black Polaris RZR XP Turbo S. It looked like a pair of seats and a mean little engine wrapped in a burly roll cage, but it had too many names for Tommy’s tastes, so he dubbed it the Razor. It looked like a rugged, capable vehicle, more than able to navigate any trail wide enough to handle it. It had two seats, room for extra gas cans, and a luggage area kind of like a tiny truck bed over the engine in the rear. Tommy figured right away he could load that up with any guns and ammunition he could find along with additional gas cans, as he was certain that gasoline was going to come into short supply very soon.

  Seeing the keys were in the ignition, Tommy climbed inside the Razor, started it up. The engine sound powerful when he revved it. He drove it into the courtyard, parked it, and went to work.

  ***

  It may have been an hour later, maybe more, Tommy didn't know. He'd lost track of time as he did his best to shake the rage he was feeling toward every 704 shithead in Spring Creek.

  While loading up the Razor, he’d found Lugenbuhl’s gunroom, a trove of weapons of every type—old, new, antique and expensive, utilitarian and deadly.

  What had Tommy intrigued most was an M4, a full-auto version of the AR-15. It had a red dot scope mounted on top, and a silencer attached to the barrel. With it, Tommy stood at the edge of Lugenbuhl's courtyard where he could see Vail Pass in the distance, The Copper Mountain ski resort up the valley, and most of Lugenbuhl’s long, private drive zigzagging down the mountain through the trees. Looking down, there were targets at every range, pinecones, stumps, saplings, and tree trunks. All there for Tommy to shoot while getting comfortable with a tool he was soon going to put to good use.

 
He’d emptied a full magazine and half of another when he heard Summer coming up behind him. He turned, and was alarmed. Her eyes were damp. She had tears on her cheeks, yet she wasn’t crying.

  “What happened?” Tommy was beside her in a flash, looking her over for wounds, bruises, torn clothing. “Are you alright?”

  “I—”

  Tommy switched out his magazine, held his rifle at the ready and grabbed Summer by the hand, pulling her toward the house. “Did that asshole get away?” Tommy decided that was okay. Chad wouldn’t be able to do much with a ruined hand. “Stay behind me.”

  “He didn’t escape,” said Summer.

  "He's still in the game room?" Tommy hurried through the open front door, dropping Summer's hand and putting both of his on the rifle as he scanned the room for targets. He stopped and listened for the sound of a soon-to-be-dead man cowering in a corner. "You sure he's down there?"

  Summer nodded.

  Tommy hustled over to the stairs. “C’mon.”

  He was already moving down before Summer was halfway across the great room.

  Once at the bottom, Tommy was alarmed. He didn't see Chad's close-cropped head sitting at the desk where Tommy had left him. Tommy rushed forward anyway, regarding the laptop on the desk, the nail gun, and Chad's hand, still tacked in place on the table.

  Tommy followed the arm down as he drew closer and saw Chad, arm twisted at an extreme angle, butt on the floor, head nodding forward as if to sit up, and then failing. Tommy moved around to see Chad from the front, and froze. Chad's face was streaked with blood. A nail was stuck in his forehead, buried three inches deep.

  Chad’s free arm was jerking. His mouth as dripping slobber down his front and he was trying to talk, trying to say—it took Tommy a few tries to get it, “Help me.”

  Tommy stepped back.

  Summer reached the bottom of the stairs.

  Tommy looked at her—no blame, no judgment, just a question. “What’d he do?”