“You don’t touch her,” he said, grabbing his leader gently under the armpits and carefully bringing her to her feet. She stood on unsteady legs with her billowy robes falling around her. Kahn looked at her face and searched for familiarity there, finding none. The red dot staining the white cloth faded in the shadows of the room as Jesse turned and escorted her to Deb and the children.
“So,” Deb asked. “What’s the plan?” Jesse told her the Burned Woman’s story, leaving out the part confirming Llewelyn Wither’s presence but confirming the reverend and Daisy’s. Deb nodded along as Jesse restated the plan to trade Llewelyn’s grandchildren for the freedom of their own people.
“--and that’s it, we trade and get out,” he finished.
“Okay, how are we going to break open these cages?” Deb asked, gesturing toward the welded chain-link barriers around the room. Kahn and Jesse looked at each other.
“I don’t think we can free them, yet,” Jesse replied. Kahn nodded in agreement.
“We didn’t talk about it. But I think Jesse’s right. These people are in no shape to take care of themselves, and we can’t protect them and trade for our people at the same time--”
“You two are insane? You’re going to leave these people in cages? The women and children are in separate pens, for chrissake! You can’t leave them like this,” she finished softly, thinking through the care needed for the Neighbors’ prisoners. How would we keep the dead off of them? How do we get them all out? Are there no vehicles left?
“Deb,” Jesse said. “We can come back for them, when we rescue Daisy and Reverend Green.”
“What if it was Mel?” Deb asked, bitterly remembering the three women chained at the auto shop. “Each of these women is somebody’s wife, or daughter, or mother. These are people. They’re people,” she stopped with a sob and Jesse carefully embraced her.
“You’re right, and that’s why we’ll come back for them. Let’s do the job on the roof and go.” Deb nodded into his shoulder, wiping tears of grief on his shirt. Her tears were for the people imprisoned by the Neighbors, but they were also for her friends and family. They were for Ty and Kimble and Captain Louis and the rest. And tears fell at the thought of the awful hostage negotiation they were barreling toward. It was all coming to an end, rushing to meet them, and Deb’s strength was fading.
After a second, Bella and Jack both grabbed Deb in a tight squeeze, sharing their love with their latest caretaker in her moment of sadness. She turned and knelt, taking them both into her arms. She kissed one and then the other on the cheek, and then whispered for them to stay close to her. When she stood, her tears were gone and her strength had returned.
Without a word, the small group moved toward the stairwell where they had entered the room. The Burned Woman confirmed this was the way they brought her down from the roof, down dozens of floors, until they reached the cages.
They began their ascent.
Chapter 38
- Negotiation
Negotiation
The roof was blazing. The sun was high in the sky, and the midday heat had driven all of the dome’s dwellers under the shade of the canopy. Llewelyn even relented and allowed the blonde woman and black minister to join him in the shade. The guards sat lazily in camping chairs, holding their rifles across the chair’s arms and drifting in and out of difficult sleep. There was no more drinking water on the roof, and the last swallow had been so hot it scorched Llewelyn’s throat. He was considering sending one of the two armed guards downstairs when he heard a familiar groaning noise.
CREEEEEEAAK…
For a moment, Llewelyn furrowed his brow at the recognizable sound of hinges on the roof hatch. Then, at the same moment his guards did, he jumped out of his chair and grabbed for his weapon.
The hatch was across the other side of the long roof, centered between the concrete pillars that lined the flat center. The narrow width, about twenty or twenty-five feet before the sloped sides, had the perfect amount of space for the Black Hawk to land on the northern end. This was where Llewelyn had waited for his friends to return. He saw, as the hinge opened fully, a man followed by a woman enter the roof. They carried identical wooden-stocked rifles and each had a hatchet hanging from their belt. They looked around for a moment and spotted the covering and the Neighbors sitting in the shade before each ran to the flanking pillars. One went right and one went left, and they skidded to a stop behind the round, column-like structures.
The guards fired. In the moments it took the new arrivals to climb up and run to the colonnade, the two defenders realized their duty and reacted to the strangers on the roof. Llewelyn’s hands went to his ears and the two hostages cringed on the ground as the ear-piercing shots rang out. One of the defenders stepped into the open central area, walking forward as he fired toward the pillar the man cowered behind. Chunks of concrete flew from the pillar as the rifle rounds smacked into it. The other sentry was trying to shoot around the pillar nearest to the canopy, only succeeding in kicking up gravel as his shots struck the ground in front of the other stranger’s pillar.
A voice rang out over the gunshots. Llewelyn removed his hands from his ears as the middle defender stopped to reload. He looked up and saw the idiot guard was fully exposed in the middle of the roof, but the pillar people didn’t fire. He heard the voice again over the shots from the other guard. The leader of the Neighbors stepped quickly and grabbed the arm of the nearest guard.
“Stop, stop firing. Listen,” he said. The second guard had a new magazine ready to go but instead of continuing to shoot moved to the other side of the roof. Now, defenders stood on opposite pillars from the invaders and nobody was firing a shot.
“Llewelyn Wither!” the voice rang out again, much more clearly now that the gunfire had ceased. “Llewelyn Wither! We have come to negotiate.”
Llewelyn scoffed. “Negotiate for what, boy? We have all we need.”
“We want our people,” the voice said, drifting in the hot wind.
“Your people?” Llewelyn looked down at the ground. The young, pretty blonde was curled into a ball in the gravel. The zip ties dug into her wrists and the shirt she wore was torn. He could see scrapes and bruises on her face but he thought she was pretty enough to want to rescue. He believed it. The other man, the pastor or reverend or whatever he was, cowered with his eyes shut tightly. That man was much worse for wear, having taken the brunt of the abuse from the Russians. Dried blood caked his face and both eyes were swollen. He breathed heavily in the hot air and Llewelyn didn’t think he would last very long. “Weak,” he whispered to the pair. A gust of hot breeze blew and Llewelyn brushed his graying hair across the top of his head.
“Hal? Hal, is that you?”
“Shut up, girl,” Llewelyn cried, kicking gravel in the blonde woman’s face. “Unbelievable. You keep your mouth shut,” he scowled. Her voice was barely a croak in the wind and Llewelyn didn’t think the other voice heard her at all.
“We’re coming up,” the stranger yelled. Two brown hands popped up from the opening. Kahn pushed himself up higher, exposing his torso but ready to jump down at a moment’s notice. The two guards trained their weapons on the hatch, waiting for an order from their leader.
“Lower your guns, boys. Let’s see what Mr. Hal has to say.”
Kahn seethed. The last time he saw this man, this murderer, he was burning down Kahn’s home and killing his family. The odor of gunsmoke hit his nostrils as he carefully stepped onto the flat center of the domed roof and a flash of memory came. Sulfur, gunpowder, burning the hair in his nose. The ringing sound and splatter of brain matter that hit Kahn when Llewelyn executed Ash, Kahn’s brother-in-law. Then, another flash. This time at night on his knees in front of his home. His wife, Aisha, and son Daniel. Taken on the orders of Llewelyn. Taken into the home just before Kahn was barricaded in his own garage. The smell of gasoline and the taunting as they lit his house on fire. Kahn’s palms suddenly itched, and months-old burns on his face and arms began to th
rob as his anger grew.
Kill him. Kill him now.
Kahn’s inner voice boiled to the surface and his mind began to race to comply. He’d shoot the murderer, but he left his rifle down the ladder. He’d rush forward and strangle him, but he had two guards ready to shoot before Kahn even got close. Kill him.
“Kahn,” Jesse called out. “Come on, let’s do this. Bring them up.” Kahn snapped out of it and nodded at his comrade.
“Llewelyn Wither, I have something to trade. Your people for my people.”
“My people?” Llewelyn scoffed. “Whoever you got shouldn’t have got caught. You keep ‘em.”
“I don’t think you understand what’s at stake here,” Kahn continued, unfazed. “I have your people. Not Neighbors. Withers.” Llewelyn’s eyes narrowed.
“You’ve made a mistake, Mr. Hal,” he said. “There are no more Withers but me. You ain’t got nothing I want. Now you have until the count of three to exit my building. One. Two. Th--”
“I can prove it!” Kahn held up a small, flat object. A card, Llewelyn thought. Curiosity got the better of him and he nodded slowly, indulging the game.
“Okay, I’ll bite. What’s the card?”
“Send one of your guards over here, have him drop his weapon first.”
Llewelyn hesitated only for a moment, then he nodded at the guard nearest his position. He’d noticed the kid couldn’t shoot worth a damn. If these people shot the kid, so what. No big loss. He impatiently swept his hand toward the young man. The sentry leaned his rifle against the pillar and made carefully for the center.
“Don’t try anything funny, young man,” he said sharply, holding up a small black object. It looked like a cell phone. But Kahn knew from the way Llewelyn brandished it that it was some strange weapon. He nodded and held the card forward.
The Alamodome’s roof was mostly unusable outside of the center strip that contained the hatch and useless stone pillars. The gravel-covered strip was long and narrow. The Neighbor crept along carefully, shoes crunching on the surface. When he got within a few feet, Kahn tossed the card. It fluttered in the wind and came crashing down at the guard’s feet. He retrieved it, looked at it, and turned to walk it to his boss.
Llewelyn’s eyes widened as he studied the small, laminated card. David Wither, he read on the driver’s license. The implications ran through the old man’s head. His son David had been lost from the very beginning. The day the government declared a state of emergency against the undead, David left home and never came back. Llewelyn remembered calming David’s crying wife over the phone before the phones stopped working. Then, everything stopped working.
“Where did you get this?” he called, holding the license in the air. “Where’s my son?”
Instead of answering, Kahn turned slowly and deliberately toward the hatch. He reached to the entry and took a pair of hands in his. He pulled and up came a small child, then an older child. They both had long, unkempt hair and were little more than skin and bone. Kahn knelt and spoke to both of them quietly before standing, holding a hand of each tightly in his own.
“Grandpa?” Bella asked, looking to Kahn and back to her grandfather. “That’s my grandpa,” she said to Kahn. He nodded and squeezed both of their hands.
“Yes, don’t worry. You’ll be able to go to him in a minute.”
Llewelyn showed no signs that he was happy. He glared at Kahn across the roof as the distant rumble of a summer storm reached them. A cloud passed in front of the sun, casting the scene in shadow before returning to the miserable glaring heat as a third figure struggled to get herself through the portal to the roof. She was clad in a white robe, dingy-looking in the direct sunlight. She cowered in pain as the light found her sensitive skin, and she sat in a heap next to the open aperture. The Neighbors recognized her and the two guards looked at their chief. One of them was the orderly who handcuffed her downstairs. The cuff still hung from one wrist of the monstrous-looking woman and the sentry shuddered thinking about the gaping holes in her face and unnatural flesh.
Llewelyn, too, recognized her, but instead looked at his hostages. The priest-man hadn’t moved and now had a thin trickle of blood dripping from his ear. The girl had come to her knees and was breathing hard with fear in her eyes. Tears were painting clean channels into the dirt on her face and she turned her gaze toward Llewelyn as he looked down at her. His fingers dug into the device he held.
“Please,” she begged. “Please let us go. We rescued them and brought them to you. We lost people to keep them safe. Please.” Llewelyn looked back to the negotiator and put the license in his pocket.
“What do you want?”
The words hung in the hot air for a moment as Jesse, Deb, and Kahn realized they had crossed a threshold. This was no longer a hostage situation, this was now a negotiation. They had gotten through to the man and despite the danger they all felt a sense of relief.
“Your grandkids for our people. Then you let us leave and we’ll never see you again,” Kahn called, stepping into the role of negotiator naturally. Now he knew he held something Llewelyn wanted and would trade for. Confidence came in a wave, flowing through him as he watched Llewelyn struggle to find words. He was giving the man an opportunity to get his grandchildren back. Despite taking Kahn’s family from him. He once again wanted to hurt the murderer who burned his wife and kid to death. Before he could think about the consequences, Kahn called out, “Your son David is dead. Ashur Zaka killed him.”
As soon as the words came out, Kahn knew it was a mistake. Llewelyn’s expression darkened as Bella cried out at Kahn’s hurtful words. He looked to Jesse and saw the tension and anger there.
“Llewelyn, Lew, we don’t want any trouble. We just want to give you Bella and Jack,” Deb cried out. “Please, just let us go with our people. Please just let us go.”
“I know you,” Llewelyn called, pointing an accusing finger at Kahn. “You’re my Syrian, aren’t you? You’re that goddamn Syrian I burned in the house out east. How did you get this?” He pulled the license back out of his pocket and held it high in the air.
“My brother-in-law, Ash. You killed him at the factory,” Kahn replied, bunching his fists and clenching his teeth. “You shot him!”
“Yeah, I remember that. I remember you tried to break in and steal my stuff. I remember, what’s his name, Kil-- Kil-- Kimble. Kimble showing me your house and your family. He killed them, Syrian. Not me.” He finished with a second not me under his breath, almost with a chuckle.
“Listen,” Jesse jumped in, setting his rifle against the pillar and holding his hands out. He stepped out from behind his cover. “We are just here to trade. The two kids for our two. Do we have a deal?”
“No,” Llewelyn snapped. He turned and grabbed Daisy by the arm. She yelped in surprise as he pulled her to her feet. “This girl is mine. You can have the priest for the kids.”
“Wait!” Kahn cried out, stepping forward until Jesse grabbed him. “You can’t take her.” He looked around desperately, trying to think of a way to salvage his negotiation. He caught a glimpse of the Burned Woman, sitting on the floor near the hatch still. “Her! You can have her!” The woman didn’t move as Kahn pointed her direction, condemning her with his offer.
Llewelyn’s brow furrowed again. “Why in the hell would I want her?” He spat on the gravel as Daisy wriggled in his grasp. He looked down toward the battered prisoner on the ground and thought how clever he was to avoid showing the priest’s friends how hurt he was. Yet. He’d make the trade and then they’d see what state their friend was in. He smiled, thinking about his uncanny ability to sniff out the best deals. Nobody makes deals like me, he thought. The heat was getting to his head though, and he was getting tired of the conversation. If they didn’t finish soon, he’d end it with violence. He fingered the object in his hand, thinking of its power and feeling the potential energy underneath his feet.
“Her and the reverend. They work together and find food, shelter, supplies. Didn’t
you wonder why they were thriving in the middle of downtown where the dead were everywhere? She has a power, she can see where to go and what to do. She told us you were up here. If you take her and the reverend, they’ll tell you where to find what you need.” Jesse shouted at Kahn but Llewelyn barely heard the internal argument from these intruders. The woman had powers?
That couldn’t be true, he thought.
But what if it is true. You might have the opportunity of a lifetime.
Yes, but you’d have to let the Syrian have what he wants.
Who cares? You’d have this clairvoyant. She could always find him later to kill.
And if she doesn’t have powers? If he’s lying to you?
Then we kill her and we find and kill the Syrian anyway.
Yes.
“Hey, old man! Do we have a deal?” Kahn called out, locked in an angry embrace with Jesse who was trying to prevent the transaction. He was shouting over Kahn and not agreeing to the trade. But Kahn was in control, and Llewelyn nodded.
“Grandkids too?”
“Grandkids too,” Kahn replied. The old man nodded again and brushed his hair with his fingertips. He shoved Daisy forward and she took a few ragged steps into the middle of the clearing. Llewelyn gestured come hither to Kahn.
“Okay, then. The kids first.”
“Burned Woman first.” Kahn strode back to the hatch and picked up the burn-damaged leader under her armpits. He half-walked, half-dragged her to the center. Jesse stood in the way and stopped Kahn.
“No, this isn’t happening. You can’t just give her to him. She’s a human being,” Jesse said.
“She’s our only hope to get out alive with Daisy,” Kahn snapped back. “I’m not giving up Daisy. I love her. Now move out of the way before I move you.” Kahn prepared to fight his way past the long-haired patrol leader in order to complete the deal before the diminutive voice of the Burned Woman stopped the confrontation.
“Jesse, let me go. It’s time to let me go,” she looked from one to the other. “Hal is right. If Llewelyn agrees to this deal, we should allow it to happen. I’ll be fine.” She touched Jesse’s face lightly as she shifted and took the burden of her weight away from Kahn’s grip. He released her, and she moved her hand from Jesse’s to Kahn’s cheek.
Nation Undead (Book 2): Collusion Page 26