by Riley Flynn
Peg closed her eyes. “I’m just glad we made it. I almost feel like pinching myself to make sure it’s real.”
“You people have been through more than your fair share, said Jax. “But there’s nothing to be afraid of anymore. You’re safe now.”
“There were some others that left Boulder before us,” said Wayne. “We met them a couple weeks before we left; they had the same idea, figured things had to be better in Colorado Springs. I wonder if they made it—they left about a week before that mother of all blizzards and we’ve been wondering about them ever since.”
Jax smiled at the thought that he might be reuniting some people. A little light in the darkness of this miserable winter.
“When did these folks leave?” he asked.
“About three weeks ago,” said Peg. “God, I hope they made it. Poor Rebecca; I can’t stand the thought of her on her own. If she hadn’t met the rest of them—”
“A middle-aged woman?” Jax asked. “Special needs? Best friend is Patti?”
Her mouth dropped open a full inch, her eyes wide. “That’s them! Did you see them?”
“Picked them up during that horrible storm, in the same area where we found you folks. They’re all in the Springs, and doing fine as far as I know.”
“Thank God,” Wayne whispered. “It was so hard to hope, you know? I mean, it’s hard enough to believe you’re going to make it, let alone anyone else.”
“They had a rough go of it in the blizzard,” said Jax. “They didn’t have a clear path to walk on, so they were snowshoeing about fifty yards off the shoulder. In fact, you were walking along the area we cleared when we came to find them.”
“That was when we dared to think maybe we were headed for civilization,” Rick said, stifling a burp as he set his cup on the floor. “A cleared path couldn’t have come about by accident. I guess we have the folks before us to thank for it.”
“Don’t worry,” said Jax. “I can’t really speak for the rest of them, but if I know Hutch, he’d consider the debt paid if you joined him for a drink.”
“He’s quite the guy,” Lee said from the driver’s seat. “Always makes me laugh.”
“That’s really saying something for Sgt. Lee here,” Jax said with a grin. “He’s usually about as lively as a statue of Millard Filmore.”
“Bite me, sir,” Lee deadpanned.
Wayne gave them a quizzical look. Jax glanced at Peg and saw a similar expression. “I’m not sure what we’re talking about here,” she said.
“Just that Hutch has made a real impression on a lot of people. Not that the others haven’t; I know some folks have taken to helping Patti take care of Rebecca, make sure she gets what she needs, keeping her spirits up. But Hutch always seems ready to sit down with a scotch or three and wax poetic on a hundred different subjects.”
“I’m glad to hear that they’re okay,” said Wayne. “But who is this Hutch?”
Jax frowned. “Hutch. Professor Elwood Hutchinson. Big tall guy, long dreadlocks, John Lennon glasses.”
Wayne and Peg looked at each other, then at the two young men.
“Do you know who he’s talking about?” Wayne asked. The other three shook their heads.
“He was with that group when we found them,” said Jax. “Patti even credited him with saving their lives.”
“Sorry, Captain,” said Peg. “We have no idea who you’re talking about.”
20
“You said you’d consider another suspect,” Jax said as the Hummer cruised down Lake Avenue towards the Broadmoor. “That’s exactly what I’m bringing you.”
“You need to put quotation marks around the word suspect,” said Maggie.
He tried to breathe away his frustration. “It makes a hell of a lot more sense to me than Farries killing his girlfriend,” he said. “We spent weeks on alert after what happened in the mountains, watching every single person who showed up in the city. Then we got lazier and lazier about it, until it seems we barely even think about it anymore.”
“There’s a reason for that: in all that time, we haven’t uncovered anyone who’s out to do us harm. Not a single attack.”
“Maggie, these people are organized, and they’re smart. We could have people in our midst right now who are just patiently biding their time until the order is given.”
“In the form of beating a young woman on the president’s council to death?”
He slowed the Hummer as it drove past the hotel’s parking lot. It was almost full these days, thanks to the new arrivals liberating vehicles for their personal use. Most of them had never bothered when they lived downtown because everything they wanted was close by. Now that they were living cheek to jowl, the need for many of them to get away and find some space for a while was clear. Ruben and his men had already been called upon to put down a number of disputes that had escalated into violence.
“Maybe it’s a message saying that the government isn’t safe,” he said. “It could very well be symbolic.”
“And Hutch is the killer? The nutty professor who I haven’t seen sober since the first time I met him?”
Jax killed the engine outside the entrance and lowered his voice.
“What better way to deflect suspicion?” he asked. “Look how quickly he wormed his way into the Broadmoor by making friends with the council. He crashed there a couple of times because he was too drunk to leave; next thing you know, Todd is inviting him to move in.”
She fixed him with her dark eyes. “So now Todd is in on it, too? Jesus, Jax.”
“I didn’t say that. But you have to admit, it was pretty convenient.”
“There were hundreds of empty rooms! Who cared if he was in one of them? A few days later, they were all full anyway!”
Jax sighed. “The two things you look for in a suspect are motive and opportunity. Motive is destabilizing the government. Opportunity was living right in the same building.”
“And sticking out like a sore thumb. Hutch isn’t exactly low profile. Plus, he’s in his late 50s.”
“His shoulders are as wide as mine, Mags. He covers himself up in heavy sweaters that are a size too big for him, but believe me, he has the physical strength. And age isn’t a factor. I’m still scared of Archer, and he’s almost sixty-five.”
That last was a lie—Archer had utterly lost the edge that had made him so formidable for all the years Jax was under his command—but Maggie didn’t know that.
“Fine,” she said, opening the passenger side door. “I’m here now, and we’re investigating, just like I said I would. But I’d bet my paycheck that we’re going to find a simple explanation, and soon.”
“Pft,” he scoffed, trying to lighten the mood. “My paycheck is twice what yours is.”
She smiled. “You’re right: two times zero is zero.”
Ruben met them in the lobby, looking ill-tempered and ready to bite. The space around them was full of people milling around, the air echoing with conversations, a few shouts and even a drunken sing-along.
“Give me a cot under the mountain any day,” he griped. “The lounges are always full, so they’re spilling out here all the time. I can’t even keep track of how many glasses they’ve broken. And don’t get me started on the furniture.”
Maggie put a hand on his arm. “They’re doing the best they can.”
“All I know is that the minute all that white shit out there melts, I’m turfing every one of them.”
“Okay, enough with the sob story,” said Jax. “Did you find our people?”
“What’d your last slave die of?”
Jax grinned. “Underworked.”
Ruben shook his head and jerked a thumb in the direction of the reception desk. “They’re in the office there. I could only track down three. You’re welcome.”
Maggie kissed his bearded cheek. “You’re the best.”
“Uh-huh.”
Inside the office, Ed, Patti and Jai sat in wingback chairs and drank coffee from Styrofoam cups. Jax
had asked Ruben not to bother Rebecca, as the questioning would only upset her, and Hutch was out, obviously. That left Miles as the odd man out, but Jax didn’t really care as he’d never liked the guy anyway.
“What’s this about?” Ed asked as they closed the door behind them. “The lieutenant said you wanted to talk to us about our trip here?”
“We do,” said Maggie. “But first, how are you all doing?”
They glanced at each other and Jai shrugged. “It sure beats where we were. And the people have been very nice. Especially Raylene.”
“She’s a piece of work, that one,” Patti said with a grin.
“I’m not overly keen on staying in this hotel the rest of my life,” said Ed. “It was pretty awesome having my own place downtown. But I guess beggars can’t be choosers.”
“We’re working on it,” said Jax. “But it will take some time. The army is sorry all you folks had to go through this.”
Ed shook his head. “Like the kid said, if there’s no armed gangs roaming around, we’re good.”
“How can we help?” asked Patti.
Maggie glanced at Jax as she took a seat. He crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his head. This is your show.
“We’re just looking for a little more information on Hutch,” she said. “We were under the impression that he’d come in with you folks from Boulder.”
“What gave you that idea?” asked Ed.
“He said he was a professor at CU Boulder, so we just assumed.”
Jai shook his head. “No, we met him on the outskirts of Denver. He put us up for a couple of days, then decided to join us when we headed south again. He told us he’d been in Denver when the virus hit, and he’d been stuck there ever since.”
“So none of you knew him before then?”
“None of us knew each other before the collapse,” Ed said in a tone that suggested it should be self-evident. “Boulder’s not exactly a small town. The population is well over a hundred thousand.” He stopped and looked at his cup. “I mean it was.”
“Did any of you ever get the sense that Hutch wasn’t who he said he was?” Maggie asked.
Patti frowned. “That’s an odd question. What reason would we have to doubt him? He was a tremendous help to us. He had lots of supplies for us: the truck for the trip to Colorado Springs, food and water, even guns.”
“Pretty resourceful for a philosophy professor,” said Jax.
Maggie flashed him a look before going back to her questions. “We’re not accusing him of anything,” she said. “It’s just that we have to be vigilant. It’s a long story, but we have reason to believe that certain people are trying to infiltrate Colorado Springs.”
Jai’s eyes widened. “Infiltrate? What for?”
“We don’t know for sure, but we do know that they’re not who they say they are, and they don’t have our best interests at heart.”
“Jesus,” Ed breathed. “I thought we’d gotten away from all that when we arrived here.”
“You can’t get away from human nature,” said Jax. “Unfortunately.”
“I don’t want to leave you with the impression that there’s anything sinister about Hutch,” said Maggie. “I know you all care about him; we all do. We just wanted to be thorough.”
Jai put up a nervous hand. “There is, um, one thing. You know, that seemed a little…odd, I guess.”
Jax was all ears, but tried to keep it from showing on his face. “What’s that?”
“It’s just that… well, he moved into this hotel, like, immediately after we got here. The rest of us were all assigned apartments downtown, but he just came here and stayed. Back when it was just Raylene and her council friends living here.”
Ed stroked his chin. “Now that you mention it, I haven’t seen him since a few days after we got to the city. Never gave it much thought before, but I suppose it’s because he was spending all his time here.”
“Did he ever mention any family?” Maggie asked. “Anyone he was close to before the collapse?”
“Not really,” said Patti. “He didn’t talk a lot about anything personal, mostly just asked us questions about ourselves. And talked philosophy and made jokes, of course.”
Jai grinned. “Listening to him was like taking a class, but a really cool one. He’d talk about this guy named Edward Bernays back a hundred years ago, who came up with the idea to convince people that they needed things they didn’t really need in order to keep them as slaves to the dollar. And how there was this fight between Bernays and FDR over how to make voters do what they wanted. He even made Ted Kaczynski sound not crazy.”
“Who’s Ted Kaczynski?”
“You’re probably too young to remember,” said Patti. “He was this anarchist who mailed bombs to people between the 1970s and 1990s. He was a genius, but he lived in a tiny cabin in the woods. They called him the Unabomber.”
Jax felt his pulse quicken. “I read about him,” he said. “He wrote a manifesto about how western society had become like sheep; they couldn’t take care of themselves because they relied too much on technology.”
“That’s him,” said Jai. “Kind of ironic in hindsight, after all of our electronics went to shitbefore the Eko virus. And there’s all the stuff about how the cost of advancing society was losing your freedom, that kind of stuff. But the way Hutch told it, it all made sense, you know?”
Maggie looked up at Jax before turning back to their guests. Meanwhile, he fought the urge to smile.
“Thank you all for your help,” she said. “We really appreciate it. We’d of course ask you not to talk to Hutch about this.”
The three agreed as they stood and headed for the door.
“Do you really think he’s not who he says he is?” asked Patti. The look in her eyes said she very much hoped the answer was no.
“Nothing is even close to certain at this point,” said Maggie. “Your answers were a big help. But don’t take this as a reason to not talk to Hutch. He’s the same guy he always was, and you have no reason to be afraid of him.”
“That’s good,” she said with obvious relief. “Every friend is precious these days.”
“Well?” Jax asked as he hit the start button for the Hummer.
Maggie thought for a moment before answering. She knew he was desperate for Lisa’s killer to be anyone other than Farries, and that he was clutching at straws, but he’d built a compelling case. Then again, Smith had done the same for Farries. And both theories had elements to them that, under other circumstances, would have qualified them as conspiracies. But she had seen enough with her own eyes to know that anything was possible these days, no matter how crazy it might seem.
“I admit, there’s more there than I thought there would be. Circumstantial, of course, but definitely enough to warrant further investigation.” She turned to face him. “Happy?”
“Very. So where do we go from here?”
“We find Farries.”
He scowled. “So nothing changes?”
“Let me finish. We also interrogate Hutch. But we have to take Farries off the board. As long as he’s out there, he’s a danger to other people, even if it’s just behind the wheel.”
Jax thought it over. “You’re right. But I want to be in on the interrogation with Hutch.”
“No way. You’re too close to this.”
“I also understand more about how he thinks than you do.”
It was her turn to scowl now. “Yeah? How do you figure that?”
“Ted Kaczynski is the key, and I understand Ted Kaczynski.”
“The bomber guy? He was a terrorist. So what?”
“So he was also a genius, and he had very interesting ideas about the nature of society. His basic philosophy was that technology was the cause of, not the cure to, mankind’s problems. He talked about how ‘the machine’ was destined to break down, and it would cause the collapse of humanity. Sound familiar?”
She nodded. Of course it did.
“And when
that collapse happened, humanity would have to emerge from the other side and start society all over again in a completely different way. Get back to nature, eliminate our reliance on the machine. Kaczynski always referred to it as ‘getting back our dignity’. All of that sounds a lot like Stuart Adler and his mountain men to me.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that,” she said. “But I still don’t think it’s a good idea to have you there. You’re not impartial.”
“Look who’s talking! You’re ready to convict Farries the minute you get your hands on him!”
She took a breath and held it for a count of ten Mississippis. She cared for Jax deeply, but lately she seemed to be on the verge of punching him all the time.
“How’s this: you worry about Farries and I’ll worry about Hutch. Deal?”
He glared out the windshield for several moments before finally nodding. “Deal.”
“Awesome. Now if you can drop me back at my office, I have an interrogation to prepare for.”
21
Hayley couldn’t believe her luck—Jax was even more distracted than he usually was lately, and she already knew he’d say yes.
“It would just be me and Brooke and Brandon and Lucas,” she said. “Ms. Sidley said it was okay with her.”
“She did? Okay, that’s good.”
“And I know that Cheryl and Christine could use a night without me,” she said, referring to the two corporals—they had started as airmen and been reclassified after the military had unified under the army banner—who shared the bunk room with her and Val Cruz. “I think I drive them a little crazy sometimes.”
“Mm-hmm,” said Jax. “Sure.”
“So you can just go if you have to. Ms. Sidley’s quarters are just on the second floor, and I don’t need anything.”
“What about pajamas?”
“I can wear some of Brooke’s. She has an extra toothbrush, too.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Well, it sounds like you’re set. I guess all there’s left to do is say have fun.”
She was still kind of mad at him, sort of, about the other night, but she also knew that staying mad wasn’t going to get her what she wanted, so she frowned and tilted her head.