Ava grabbed his feet and held on. “I’ll do anything,” she pleaded with him.
Parker slowly reached over and grasped his shovel like a baseball bat.
Ava lifted herself to her knees, her face right in front of his crotch and looking up at the kid’s face. He made that giggle again and then sniffed loudly.
Parker, unsure why he’d trusted his injured leg more than Finn, rose up shakily, his thigh trembling under the pressure as more blood seeped out to soak his already saturated jeans.
Ava started undoing Shitbird’s pants. “You didn’t get your turn for this last night with Mrs. Perkins, right? I can do it now if you’ll let us live.”
“Goddamn right,” the kid said. He was breathing heavily, and he swallowed so hard his Adam’s apple clicked.
Parker had a great and abiding respect for Sammy Sosa, performance-enhancing drugs or not (who was he to judge someone about drug use?). On steroids or not, the Dominican knew how to swing a bat, how to pop his hips and get his whole body into it. Channeling his inner Sammy Sosa, Parker lined up the back of Shitbird’s head with the edge of his shovel and cocked back.
Three things happened almost simultaneously. There was a whump sound as something hit the dirt at Parker’s feet with great force. Then a rooster tail of earth sprayed him. Then the heavy crack of a rifle rolled into the clearing.
Parker flinched and Shitbird spun around in surprise, backing away from Ava.
“Next one goes in your back,” the man on the Expedition shouted to Parker. “Get ’em digging and quit fucking around, Shitbird.”
Shitbird looked from Ava to Parker. His pants were undone and his face was flushed so red the pus nodules of his whiteheads stood out in vivid relief. Parker dropped the shovel and Ava backed quickly away, still on her knees.
“Motherfucker!” Shitbird shouted.
Rushing forward, he slammed his foot into Parker’s leg so that he crumpled, sliding down into the waist-deep hole. Worried about Ava, he quickly pulled himself up to the edge. She had her hands up as the kid pointed the muzzle of the AR at her.
“No!” Parker shouted. “She didn’t know; she didn’t know!” he lied. “She was really pissed at me and I took a chance; she didn’t know!”
You did it again, Parker berated himself. You came up with a half-assed plan that almost cost someone who trusted you their lives.
Shitbird looked back and forth between them.
The kid really is dumb as fuck, Parker thought. I wonder why they trusted him to guard us by hims—
Parker started. He hadn’t seen the other two men at all this morning. He thought about sending Finn away moments ago. This whole thing could have been a charade by AR-guy or Gap-tooth to get their hands on Finn if she was still in the area.
“Fucking dig,” Shitbird said.
They dug.
10
The Vineyard
Sara Parker walked along as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
But, she was still sore, and she’d been forced to hide the bleeding after Truesdale had finished with her. She avoided the man now, when she could, but she knew she had to get over that—and quick. Soon enough, she would have to insinuate herself back into his good graces.
And she understood exactly what that was probably going to lead to. She pushed those thoughts out of her head. Eyes on the prize, Sara, she told herself. Mission first.
Despite everything that had happened, the vines hung heavy with fruit as workers busied themselves picking the elderberries. Walking down the rows on the edge of the north vineyard, she waved to Section Leader Dexter and showed him the wicker basket she was carrying.
Typically, section leaders kept tabs on the church members under their administrative control. When she’d woken that morning, it had been to find out that Truesdale had reassigned her and she would now work directly under him in the church offices, placing her outside of the normal organizational divisions. It would give her wide latitude, essential for her real job.
At a price. She wasn’t looking forward to anymore one-on-one time with Truesdale.
Dexter didn’t wave back; he bent his head and lit a cigarette, exhaling smoke through his nostrils in twin streams. He sneered at her, and she realized with a jolt that it was a knowing leer.
Sara’s stomach tightened as the truth hit her. He knows. She flashed on the photo album. It was a trophy book, and trophies were put on display. Cheeks burning, she turned quickly and walked toward the woods. Before she entered them, she took a quick look over her shoulder, but Dexter looked busy with directing some of the workers and, from her angle, she didn’t think he could see her.
Once through the first screen of trees, she turned east and began walking faster. A hundred yards into the deeper woods, she climbed a small hill and stood next to a red oak for a minute, watching her back trail.
Satisfied she wasn’t being followed, she ducked through some slippery elm and cut down the back of the hill. She came out in a dry riverbed and followed it for a quarter mile. Coming to a little pile of rocks haphazardly stacked in a loose pyramid, she stopped.
After a moment, a figure down the path stepped into view. She was dressed in hunting boots, dark Carhartt jeans, and a faded black and green flannel shirt, her hair tucked up under a dark blue Hoosier hat. Sara knew her well.
“Hello, Eloisa.”
The woman smiled, and they hugged.
“Is everything okay?” Eloisa asked.
Sara had known Eloisa since her childhood. She had been one of the first people Sara had met when she’d first been brought to the church. Over the years, she’d become her most trusted confidante and the closest thing to a friend that Sara had bothered to develop. And Eloisa worked for the Council.
“I haven’t found anything.” Sara couldn’t keep the bitter undercurrent out of her voice. “I’ve been all over the offices.”
Eloisa studied her. “Did something happen, something I should know about?”
Sara shook her head. “Nothing that’s mission-relevant.”
Eloisa reached out and took Sara by both arms, leaning in close. “You play tough because you are tough. And maybe you didn’t buy into all of Marr’s hippy-dippy bullshit any more than I did, but I’m still your oldest friend and I know you’re not a robot.” Eloisa leaned in closer and kissed Sara on the forehead. “I know you, Sara Parker; what happened?”
“I couldn’t keep Truesdale at bay,” she admitted softly. “He caught me snooping in his office.”
What Eloisa said next probably should have served as a warning for Sara, but it didn’t. Sara spent every waking hour pretending to be something she wasn’t, trapped in a situation not of her choosing. Eloisa was her lifeline to a better world. So when Eloisa’s next question wasn’t, “Are you all right?”, but was instead, “Does Truesdale suspect anything?” her faith in Eloisa and in Eloisa’s concern for her didn’t waver.
Sara shook her head. “No, I told him I was getting requisition forms and he assumed I was trying to get strawberries or chocolate on the sly. Once he…got off, he completely lost interest.”
Eloisa nodded. “When Truesdale was Gruber’s lieutenant in the old days,” she said, referencing Dr. Marr’s former head of security, “he caught me in the motorpool trying to fit Marr’s vehicle with a GPS tracker for Control.”
“What did you do?”
Eloisa shrugged. “Told him I’d dropped my tampons in the work rig earlier in the day.”
Sara frowned. “That doesn’t even make sense,” she protested.
“It does if you don’t think about it, and he stopped thinking the moment I jacked him off.”
“He didn’t try to rape you?”
“I was on the rag, he thought, a bloody mess,” Eloisa said, and tapped her temple. “He thought that was, and I quote, ‘yucky as fuck,’ end quote.”
“I wish I’d thought of that,” Sara said. Her throat tightened and she swallowed.
Eloisa hugged her like a mother might ha
ve. “You live and you learn, honey. Everyone pays their dues. The world of realpolitik is an ugly business, but once you scrape away the veneer, it’s the only true world there is.”
Sara nodded, not breaking down. Eloisa was right. Eloisa had always been right, all her life, and that meant the Council’s belief system was right. Morality, the concept of good and evil, shifted with culture. Under it all, strong dominated weak. Working with the Council was the safest place she could be. Abandoned by her mother to the church, forgotten by her father, raised in a supposed ideal state by Marr, only to see rampant victimization right under the woman’s nose. No, it was time she had real power on her side.
“I understand,” she told Eloisa simply.
“Good. It’s hard, but it’s all there is.”
“Why doesn’t the Council raid the Vineyard?” Sara asked. “You own the whole country, or most of it.”
“Because we’re on a mole hunt, and mole hunts are done quietly,” Eloisa said. “At least, I think that’s it. I haven’t been fully briefed, either.”
“I don’t think Marr would have left hard copies of anything lying around, Eloisa. I tossed Truesdale’s office and her old office, and all I got for it was…” Sara trailed off.
“The hard copy thing was a long shot, yeah, but my bosses want those names, badly. Is there anything you found that we could use?”
Sara looked at her. “The camera he used.”
Eloisa looked at her sharply. “Camera?”
“Truesdale,” she explained. “He keeps a photo album of girls. They’re printed out so he has a physical trophy, but he took a picture of me with a digital camera, after.”
Eloisa nodded thoughtfully. “Marr knew one of our Inciting Event protocols was a possible EMP route. She couldn’t have secured her operations completely, but she could have utilized smaller Faraday cages at her different locations.”
“If he has a camera that still works, why not a laptop with a battery charging station?” Sara pointed out. “Or even one of Marr’s? It’s a lot more likely than handwritten notes or print-outs.”
“Where haven’t you looked?” Eloisa asked. “Think.”
Sara bit her lip, hard, forcing the feelings surging up inside of her back down. “I don’t have to think. The only place I haven’t been able to find a legitimate excuse to enter yet is Truesdale’s bedroom.”
“Good girl,” Eloisa said. She caught Sara’s gaze and held it. “You can do hard things, Sara. You’re strong—that’s why we’re friends. You can do what’s necessary.”
Sara nodded. “I know, Eloisa.”
“I miss you so much, baby,” the Council agent said. Then she hugged Sara as if she were a little girl. “This will be over soon.”
“I know, Eloisa. But I better get back. That rat-faced bastard Dexter was watching me as I left. I think Truesdale might have already bragged about fucking me to him.”
“Dexter?” Eloisa laughed. She made her voice high-pitched and nasal, like a middle-school nerd reciting a chemistry formula. “Hi, my name is Dexter and I’m a dildo.”
Sara laughed. This was one of the first things that had bonded her to Eloisa, mocking Church leadership. “He wishes he was a dildo.”
“Don’t let me forget,” Eloisa said. “Your berries.” Walking back to her blind, Eloisa opened a camouflaged pack and pulled a plastic bag of fresh elderberries from inside. “Hold out your basket, Little Red Riding Hood. We wouldn’t want,” she made her voice high again, “Dexter, getting suspicious.”
“Thank you, Eloisa,” Sara said. “I won’t let you down.”
“I know you won’t, baby; I know you won’t.”
11
Walking quickly, Sara came over the hill and down onto the footpath leading back to the Vineyard. Four steps down the trail, though, she stopped walking. Something was wrong; she smelled cigarette smoke. She quickly looked around her, her hand creeping toward her pocket.
Section Leader Dexter stepped out onto the wooded path, rifle slung over his shoulder. Sara stayed very still, watching him. Same lanky build, same rat-faced overbite. Same cigarette dangling from his lips like he thought he was a cowboy.
“Who were you talking with, Sara?” he demanded.
“Talking with?” Sara laughed. “The squirrels, I guess, because I was picking berries.” She held out her basket as proof.
Dexter eyed the basket and then took a drag off his cigarette, clearly unimpressed with the prop. “You think I’m deaf?”
“I wish you were mute,” Sara replied.
“I don’t know why you’re being such an uptight bitch.” Deter grinned, showing that his front two teeth were crammed together. “Usually, people are relaxed once they get laid. Maybe you need to try again.” He reached out to adjust his crotch, his grin broadening.
Seizing on the social cue as cover, Sara scowled. “You’re a pig.” Pretending to be offended, she made to push past him.
Dexter was having none of it; he grabbed her arm hard and jerked her back toward him. “I’m not through talking to you!” he said. The cigarette in the corner of his mouth bobbed wildly.
She spun around and dropped her basket, spilling the berries as she slapped him hard across the face, leaving a reddened mark on his cheek. His head snapped to the side, and when he swung his face back around, his eyes burned with his rage.
“Get your hands off me or I’ll tell Theo you tried to rape me,” she told him. She thought it was a good threat.
“You really think Mr. Truesdale gives a damn about that? Think again, girlie. We’re all alone out here. Well, assuming whoever you were talking to has left.” He tightened his grip on her arm, and Sara knew from the feel of it that his grip would leave a bruise.
“You’re hearing things, Dexter. Now, take your hand off me.” Dexter had the strength to back up any threats he made, and Sara knew she was screwed if he tried anything out here. She wasn’t strong enough to fight him off and she wasn’t about to be raped again. Out here, no one could hear her scream.
“I know you weren’t alone, you little bitch,” he shot back. He shook her arm, making her flop back and forth with the force. “Now, who was it?”
“Fuck off, Dexter. I already told you that you were hearing things.”
Dexter jerked his arm back, throwing Sara off-balance so that she crashed into him as he glared down into her face. The cherry on his cigarette looked ready to fall and it occurred to her that it would burn her when it fell; she was that close to him.
“Fuck off, Dexter?” His tone sounded venomous as he repeated her words. “Fuck off, Dexter?”
Sara winced when his fingers dug painfully into her arm, but she refused to cry out.
Lifting his head, Dexter looked down the path toward the center of the Vineyard and, from the look on his face, seemed satisfied that no one would hear them. “I think it’s time you were taught a lesson in manners, princess. No one speaks to me that way. No one.”
He spit out his cigarette and ground it into the earth, giving Sara the distinct impression that he’d rather be doing that to her.
Sara froze in his grip, her body rigid. Things had rapidly gone from bad to worse, and she wasn’t going to take it.
With no more prompting, she stepped close and raked the nails of her free hand down Dexter’s face. She left bloody furrows across his skin and he spun away, crying out. Eloisa had told Sara when she gave it to her that the Glock 26 was such a small subcompact handgun that it had the nickname of “Baby Glock.” She put her hand in her jacket pocket and secured the little pistol. As Dexter turned back around, she fired twice from inside her pocket. The 9 mm rounds punched into Dexter’s narrow chest and cored through his heart. He staggered back, shock making his expression comical. Stumbling, he tried bringing his rifle into play.
Sara knew what to do. Eloisa had told her. Two in the body, center mass, one in the head. Acting on automatic pilot, she pulled the gun out and put a third bullet of the 10-round magazine into Dexter’s forehead. The
back of his head misted outward in a blood halo and the lanky section leader, already falling, went limp.
Sara stood there for a moment, her arm still outstretched, gun hand rock steady. She blinked. Slowly, she lowered the Glock. Her chest hitched suddenly, and she started breathing again. Lowering the handgun, she hoped no one was close enough to realize the shots had come from so close to the property line. She tore her eyes from Dexter’s corpse and saw her overturned basket and the elderberries spilled across the path.
She looked back over her shoulder in the direction of the vineyard grounds. Gunshots were loud even if they were muffled by the woods; it didn’t seem possible someone at the compound wouldn’t have heard. Dexter was a section leader, too; he’d be missed, quickly. Then there was the question of whether he’d grown suspicious all on his own, or if he’d been acting under orders because Truesdale himself was suspicious. Even if he hadn’t been acting on orders, others had seen her go into the woods. All things considered, everything would come back on her sooner rather than later.
No matter what, her cover was blown. It was suicidal and idiotic for her to go back into the hands of the Church now. Her mother couldn’t protect her from Truesdale.
She had to run, now, and maybe catch up to Eloisa if she could find her, or otherwise follow the plan they’d made if she were discovered and needed to run. It was the only thing that made sense.
She scooped most of her berries back into the basket. Without any supplies on her, they would provide some much needed hydration until she could scavenge what she needed. Standing then, she realized her jacket had two bullet holes in the pocket. She took it off and waded it into a ball. She’d have to dump it somewhere along the way.
12
Manbun’s name was Frank, AR-guy’s name was Adam, and the fourth man was Gabe. As far as Parker could tell, Shitbird’s name was still Shitbird.
911: The Complete Series Page 34