Joe placed the radio back to his mouth. “Cole. Cole, come in.”
Cole heard the static and the call. He was laughing when he heard it, talking to his two men about maybe bringing home blue tuxedos just to get the woman roused up. Then he thought about it and remembered they were women. The odds of them making their life a miserable hell until they went back out and got the correct tuxes were good. “Hold on.” He took that after-laugh breath, rubbed his eyes, tossed his rifle over his shoulder, and walked to the jeep to get the radio. Still laughing, he picked it up. “Yeah, Joe.”
“Cole, are you all right? Any trouble?”
“No, Joe. Why what’s up?” Cole asked.
“We have news.”
“Bentley.” Danny nudged him with excitement. “Pick up your weapon. Pick it up.”
“Oh shit.” Bentley nervously fiddled with his rifle.
Danny positioned himself better on that roof, leaning more into the ledge. “Ha-ha. I got you this time you son of a bitch. Time to tally up the card.” With his words and a bright smile, Danny began to fire down to below.
Horror shot through Joe with a feeling of being too late when he heard the gunfire through the airwaves, then silence. “Shit. Move it out!” He hurried Robbie into the helicopter and just as Robbie and the last of the team stepped in, Joe got another call on the radio.
“Joe ...” Static. “Joe.” It was Cole.
Relief, a released breath. Joe picked up the radio. “Cole, what’s going on?”
“We’re OK.” Cole closed his eyes for a second to the quiet around him. He picked himself off of the ground. “We uh ...” He shifted his eyes around, checking on his men. “We’re all fine.” Just as Cole bent down to pick up his weapon, he saw them lying not fifteen feet away. “Joe, we have three dead SUTs.”
“Dead?” Joe asked. “Any more trouble?”
“None that I can see. Let me get back to you.”
“Do that. I’m still sending Robbie and another man out with you to at least to escort you back in case there’s any more trouble. We’ll be there in twenty.”
“Thanks, Joe.”
Joe hooked his radio to his belt. “Frank, you heard.”
“Yeah, I did. Robbie and Dan.”
“Sounds good.” Joe motioned his hand to the other two men waiting to go out. He sent them on their way. “Good quick action on Cole and his men. Don’t you think?”
“Too quick.” Frank shook his head. “Maybe we should send all four out. Yeah, I think we will.”
Robbie heard this as he stepped from the chopper. “Frank, you don’t need to.”
“Why?” Frank asked.
“I’ve been out there. They travel in groups of eight to ten. If there are any more there are only seven of them. We hit them with the gas first, then take out the remaining who aren’t affected by it.”
“I don’t know, Robbie. Just to be safe, let’s send a whole team out.”
“Frank, come on. I can take them out alone,” Robbie said with arrogance. “Ye of little faith, bro. Let me have some fun.”
Frank breathed heavily out, looked at his father and then back to Robbie. “All right, you and Dan. But you canvass the area before you drop out and stay with them. And ... and you don’t help them scrap, you stay ready, find a rooftop or something. Got that?”
Robbie rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Frank, whatever, I’m not a pup in this, you know.”
“Sorry. I know. All right.” Frank waved his hand. “Move it out.”
<><><><>
Congratulations were in order or at least that’s what Cole thought. Congratulations to whichever one of his men had the quick insight and quick thinking to take out the SUTs so close to them. He approached his two men who stood stunned, passing Gene who took a seat in the jeep to catch his breath after the excitement. “You all right, Gene.”
Gene placed his hand on his chest. “Will be. Give me a second.” He snatched Cole back as he walked by him. “Cole, is it safe to go back into the tux shop?”
“Um ... give us a few minutes to check out the area. Hang tight.” He moved to his men. “Good job. Who did it?”
“Did what?” Mark asked.
“Shot the ...” Cheering caught Cole’s attention. Cheering and laughing, and he spun his head to see the two men moving quickly down the street. Hurriedly Cole raised his rifle at the tall, thin man and the shorter, heavier man. “Hold it.”
Danny scoffed as he carried his dangling weapon. “Put it down. We aren’t the bad guys here. We just saved your life.” He ran past Cole to the SUTs that were lying there. Danny, using his boot, lifted the pant leg of his baggy Levis—so as not to get blood on them—and he rolled the SUT from its stomach over to its back. “There, Bentley, I told you.” Taking the barrel of the rifle, Danny nudged the SUT. “Check the other two.” He ran the barrel down the arm of the dead SUT and found the patch, pointing it out to Bentley. “There. Look. CS. I was right. Bent?”
“Dead.” Bentley sniffed and tossed his rifle over his shoulder.
Danny laughed loudly. “Was I right? Was I? Who’s the man? Who is the man?”
Bentley rolled his eyes. “You are, Danny.”
“What I tell you? I told you it wouldn’t fail. I told you. No, you had to insist it was going off for no reason. It’s perfected, Bentley. Perfected why would it ...”
“Excuse me?” Cole made an apprehensive approach to the two. “You shot them?”
Danny faced Cole with a grin. “Yeah. We did. We saw them from the roof. Good thing for you we were up there or you wouldn’t be standing here. Man, they are sneaky.” Danny looked back down at the SUT.
“Let me ask you a question?” Cole slowly reached for his weapon. “How do I know you aren’t one of them?”
A snicker, a snort, and both Danny and Bentley laughed. Danny held up his hand as if Cole had just told the funniest of jokes. “Look at us. Look at me.” He leaned in some to Cole. “I’m wearing jeans. My pal here is wearing jeans. Those things ...” Danny’s voice dropped to a whisper, “They’re wearing uniforms. The number one reason you should know I’m not one of them is the same reason I know you’re not one of them.”
“Which is?” Cole asked.
“You talk. I talk. They don’t. Well ... they do, but they don’t, do they, Bentley?”
“Some do,” Bentley answered. “But never in whole sentences and never with reason.”
“Not true.” Danny held up his finger. “Remember the one?”
“Oh yeah.” Bentley nodded. “Though you have to admit he reasoned, but not about anything we quizzed him on.”
“He knew why we had to shoot him.”
“Oh sure, definitely.”
Cole’s head spun. “Who ... who are you two?”
Danny adjusted his rifle over his arm. “Oh hey, sorry.” He extended his hand with a firm shake to Cole and spoke rapidly which was something he did often. “Danny, Danny Hoi. Excuse the hair. And this is George Bentley. I call him Bentley or Bent for short. You?”
“Cole St. John.” Cole retracted his hand in shock after the handshake at the rambling pair.
“No way?” Danny snickered. “Is that really your name?”
“Yeah.”
“No way?” He laughed again. “It sounds like something out of a James Bond movie. You gave it to yourself, didn’t you?”
“No,” Cole told him.
“It’s OK, you can tell us. Changed your name because you figured everyone was dead and who would know anyhow.”
“No!” Cole got defensive.
“Your mother really named you Cole St. John? I guess it’s better than John St. John.” Danny shrugged. “So are you guys looking for that place?”
“What place?” Cole asked.
“You know, that place everyone says exists but only those who have gotten thrown out know it exists.” Danny looked at him, waiting for a reply.
Cole was confused. “What are you talking about?”
Bentley saw the lost l
ook. “Here let me explain. Sometimes my friend gets a little excited. He’s eccentric. We’re looking for a place we heard is in Montana. We ran into some men a while ago, a long while, and they told us about it. One of them said they couldn’t get in and the other said he had gotten tossed out years ago. It’s supposed to be a city?” Bentley titled his head. “Have you heard of it?”
“I think I have,” Cole said cautiously. “Is that what you guys are doing? You’re searching this place out?”
Danny nodded. “What the hell else do we have to do? No, scratch that. We could be sitting in our own city, but they ...” He pointed to the dead SUTs. “They are making it impossible to settle anywhere nowadays. Wait a second.” Danny stepped forward to Cole. “I should have known.” He touched Cole’s arm. “Bentley, feel his skin. He’s much too clean to be living out here. Feel his skin.”
Cole smacked away the reaching hands. “Hey.”
Danny ignored him. “Most of the men we have come across smell and don’t clean up regularly.” Danny sniffed. “You don’t smell, well, not of being unkempt and your skin isn’t gritty. He doesn’t have that sandy feel. I personally have avoided it. Bentley too. With the world at your hands, it’s hard to believe people let themselves get like animals. Don’t you agree? So are you from this place? You are aren’t you?”
“Oh boy.” Cole widened his eyes.
“You are,” Danny said with excitement. “Bent, he is! Hey can we go there?”
“Oh Boy.” Cole stepped back.
“Where you going?” Danny asked.
“I need a drink.” Cole walked to the jeep.
Danny snickered and nudged Bentley. “He needs a ... he needs a drink? Tell me he’s not from a civilized world saying something like that?”
Bentley agreed, “He wouldn’t say it if he hasn’t been saying it.”
“True.” Danny turned to Cole and yelled to him, “Hey, so can we go?” He watched Cole hold up his hand then bring a flask to his mouth. “Can we?”
Again, Cole held up his hand to him and took another drink, a long one.
Danny shrugged. “I guess that’s a yes. Feels good, don’t it. All those nights we were hanging out talking about getting back into civilization and wondering if it was just a pipe dream finding this place. Now we know it’s not. Look at the guy, drinking booze from a flask. You have to love that concept. Hey, Bent. You don’t think I came off too strong do you?”
“Nah. You have to be personable, Danny, and you’re a personable guy.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. You don’t want to be too quiet. People tend to not trust quiet people and you know a lot of the people in this world are quiet.” Bentley raised a thinking finger. “You came off Danny-like. We did decide if we found this place we were going to be ourselves so they would know we were civilized.”
“Shit,” Danny spoke in shock.
“What’s wrong?”
“Look at us. We weren’t supposed to find them looking like this.”
“We’re prepared.”
“We’re prepared,” Danny said. “Should we get moving on it now?”
“Yeah, we don’t want them to leave without us.”
Danny looked back at Cole. “Hey James Bond, we’re uh ... we’re gonna go get our stuff and get ready. Don’t leave without us.”
Cole gave an acknowledging wave—a half-ass acknowledging wave—and lifted his flask closer to his mouth again. “You want healthy men, Joe. I bring you healthy Survivor men. Oh boy.” He watched Danny and Bentley dart off into a building. “Oh boy.” What Cole wanted to do was pass the new pair off as crazy, giving him the perfect excuse to leave them behind. But they did save his life and the lives of his men. The more Cole thought about it and remembered listening to them ramble, it only made him realize how much they were already like the people of Beginnings. With that, Cole took another drink.
<><><><>
If George were a young man, he would have used the word ‘cool’ to describe himself. He grinned as he walked around his George-world, leaving his home with the best news ever, the news that he was right. The news that confirmed that not only did George know Beginnings and their way of thinking so well, that he pegged exactly what they would do. Robbie Slagel was en route to meet Cole. In flight. It was only a matter of time.
<><><><>
He was eating a sunflower seed as he sat on the steps to the mobile. Ellen paused in the open door, watching Frank. His long legs bent as he sat on that too-small-for-Frank step. His elbows on his thighs, eating each sunflower seed with precision.
A single click of her hard sole on the wooden step and the close of the mobile door let Frank know Ellen had come back out. He was in his own world and she knew it. Deep in thought she supposed. “Frank?” She sat down next to him. “Sorry.”
“No, that’s all right.” He spit out the seed. “How is he? Does he need you back in there?”
“No. He’s fine.” She reached into the cloth sack and pulled out a seed. “I’m glad you came up.”
“Me too.” Frank turned his head to face her and he smiled at her. “Sorry about being the bearer of bad news.”
“Someone had to do it.” She got rid of the seed in her mouth and grabbed another. “What exactly did Cole say?”
“About finding Survivors?”
“Yes. I hate when Cole brings back Survivors. You know they’re always trouble and there is always something wrong with them. It’s like he’s the animal magnet or something.”
Frank snickered. “I know, but he was rambling on and on.” Frank shrugged as he placed another sunflower seed in his mouth. “He sounded upset, saying something or other about you, about you and these Survivors. Then he went off talking about rambling. I don’t know. I shut him off and told him to tell Robbie to radio me.”
“Cole knows,” Ellen said with certainty. “He knows I’m gonna hate these two, doesn’t he? Trouble.”
“They could be. I’ll radio you when they get here.”
“Swell. You know what two new Survivors means don’t you? It means I’m not getting out of Containment at seven tonight. Well, Frank, I’m telling your dad, sore butt or no sore butt, he’s staying with them.”
Frank chuckled. “You tell him, El.”
“So was the whole purpose for the visit to tell me about Cole?”
“No.” Frank shook his head and peered out toward the sun with squinted eyes “I want to talk about today.”
“What about it?”
“El, you confuse me. You really confuse me.” He looked at her. “What happened? Why were you so emotional about me not going? Let me tell you, you’ve asked me not to go before. You’ve gotten upset before, but never have you been like that.”
“I know.” Seeing Frank eat a seed, she grabbed one. “So much has happened, Frank. I think you know that I’m having a hard time. More than I want is happening in my life or has happened.”
“Can I help?”
“You did.” Ellen held her hair back as it blew forward. “You didn’t go. You stayed behind and let me have a piece of mind, at least about something. There’s so much on my mind, Frank. I just didn’t want to worry about you. I worry about you even when you walk your perimeters. Sending you out there, even for something routine, was just too much for me to handle. I wanted you here and safe. I just needed you here.”
“See, that’s what confuses me. You act one way toward me but yet you’re with Dean.”
“Frank,” Ellen said his name softly. “Dean is very special to me. When he’s hurt, I’m hurt. He needs me. Right now, Dean needs all the help he can get, more than you realize. I think you will realize once you work with him that Dean is not having an easy time with his loss of sight. He tries, he tries to do all that we worked on previously, but I see the look on his face. He’s not letting instinct take over and it shows. It’s all because he’s scared. He’s scared because he has to learn to do things over again and scared because he’s afraid he won’t do thin
gs right, or that he will fail. He’s also reaching, Frank. He’s reaching, reaching for something, anything to help him. I have to be within his reach whenever he needs me.”
“I understand.” Frank let out a breath. “I understand why you are with him now. Now, El, not before.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know this whole Dean togetherness is new. Contrary to what you might think, if you and I had been together when he lost his sight, you could have come to me about it. You could have told me that you had to be there for him. I really, really believe that I would have let you. I’m not—uh—real sure about the sleeping with him part. I would have let you be there for him.”
“You know, Frank. I believe you would have.”
“Thank you for that.”
“You’re welcome for that.”
Frank returned the gentle smile that Ellen gave him. “But getting back to what I was saying.” He cleared his throat. “I’m going out on a limb here. Before this Dean thing came to a head, I thought ... I thought you and I were getting somewhere. We were getting so close I could actually feel it in here.” Frank brought his hand to his chest. “You know, when we were together, like a tension. Now I know you’ll always love me, that’s not cockiness, mind you. We’ve known each other for so long we’ll always love each other. But I thought you loved me again, really loved me again. Today, even though I know you’re with Dean, when I looked at you ...” Frank shook his head slowly. “When you were asking me not to go, I looked at you and I swore I wasn’t looking at just my friend. I swore I was looking at a woman who was in love with me.” Frank watched Ellen slowly close her eyes and bring her folded hands to her face. “What’s wrong?”
Ellen shook her head.
“El?” Frank saw her head drop. “Oh God I’m sorry. I was wrong. I was really wrong, wasn’t I? I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable.”
“Frank.”
“I didn’t, El. I swear. I was just ... just confused. You confused me.”
The Big Ten: The First Ten Books of the Beginnings Series Page 291