by Alex Mersey
She squared her shoulders, swallowed with visible effort. “I doubt Clint will see it that way and you’re right, he would have been our best chance.”
“He could still be,” Sean said, a broken smile tugging at his mouth. “We’ll just have to sweeten the deal.”
“How many fighting men does this Clint guy have?” asked Cassie.
“About thirty,” Beth said. “That’s what he said, anyway, I didn’t see that many.”
“So we load up enough weapons to arm us and thirty men and when it’s over, he gets to keep the guns and whatever ammo is left.” She lifted her chin at Sean. “That sweet enough?”
He grimaced. “Only one way to find out.”
“Then the question of the day is…” Cassie’s eyes flickered between him and Beth. “Will he turn our own guns on us the second he gets the chance? How much do you honestly trust this guy?”
“We can trust him,” Sean said, “once he’s given his word.”
“And not a moment sooner,” Beth added.
“Like I said, sounds like a real charmer.” Cassie rolled her eyes and slipped behind Beth into the dark workshop.
When he made to follow, Beth put a hand out to stop him, looked up with a worried frown. “You’re right about Clint, he does have a code of honor, however unorthodox it may be. What makes you think he’ll forgive and forget, at any price?”
Sean didn’t think that, not at all. Sweetening the deal would assuage Clint’s pride only after he’d made his decision to strike a deal or strike them down. That decision was unpredictable, vastly more complicated. He’d watched Clint shoot his own man in the head at close range, watched him turn a cold back on the bastard’s splattered brains. But then Clint had also just caught Vince red-handed in the process of violating Beth, a vulnerable girl who reminded Clint of his own daughter.
“It all depends,” he told Beth honestly.
“On what?”
On whether he can look past his dead man and still see something of his daughter in you. On whether the dead man was another Vince or someone Clint considered more highly.
The sound of a bolt scraping back spared Sean from answering with more than a shrug. A moment later, lantern light spooled from the shadows.
They made their way around the side of the bulky vehicle to the storeroom door, and found Cassie already hauling an armful of M4 carbines.
Beth picked her way over boxes of MREs to the shelves of magazine clips while Sean’s eyes swept over the tightly packed space.
“You remember where you put the C4?” he called to Cassie.
“I’ll find it,” she said, returning from dumping the carbines in the vehicle. “How much do we need?”
Sean hadn’t missed the first time she’d included herself in this operation, but now he realized that wasn’t just a slip of the tongue.
“Hey.” He moved to block her path.
Her eyes shot up to him. “Yes?”
“You don’t have to come,” he said. “If you’d rather stay here and...” He trailed as he heard himself, already knew how she’d interpret his words.
She coughed up a dry laugh, shaking her head as her mouth curled into disdain. “You’re such an asshole.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Like what?” she challenged, obviously convinced he had no idea what he’d said to piss her off.
He had a pretty good idea. She thought he was insinuating that she preferred to sit on the sidelines and only act upon direct orders from her commanding officer. But the dutiful soldier was only one part of Cassie, he’d seen she could be more. He hadn’t meant it that way, not at all.
“SPU 14 is your unit.” He lifted his hand, his fingers grazing her shoulder as she stepped back. He sighed, his arm falling to his side. “Your people. You trained with them, lived with them, fought with them. I’d never ask, never expect you to pull a gun on them, be prepared to shoot your way through them.”
Her scowling disdain unfolded somewhat. “What else am I supposed to do? Every time someone leaves this town, we never see or hear from them again. The pigeon. Ritter. Evans. Now my whole unit, the whole town. I need to… It’s just…” She ran a hand over her hair, down her ponytail, the stubborn challenge in her eyes warming as she looked at him. “I feel like if I could just bring one person back, I could break the pattern.”
“It doesn’t have to be you,” he said gently, feeling himself sink a little into the depths of her gaze. “We’ve got this.”
As always with Cassie, the tender moments were few and far between and never lasted longer than a heartbeat. “You don’t have to worry about sparing me from any emotional meltdowns, McAllister. I’m not that fragile.”
“I’m not—” Sean bit his tongue, tried again. “No, that’s not true. I do worry, and that doesn’t make you fragile, Cassie, it just makes me human.” He didn’t wait for her to find fault with that, too. “Two bricks of C4 should be fine,” he said, turning toward the stockpile of weapons, “and don’t forget the fuse strips and detonator.”
“McAllister.”
He nearly pretended he hadn’t heard. Not because he was angry with her, he wasn’t. Time was pressing heavy on his chest, though, and butting heads with Cassie wasn’t his favorite occupation. But the butter soft tone and fluttering hesitancy in her breath pulled him around.
“My parents live in a retirement village just outside San Francisco,” she told him, her face earnest without the usual traces of aloof dismissal. “I don’t know if they were evacuated, if they’re still there, if they managed to make their own way out. Last I heard, right before the EMP took out the phones, my sister and her family were at their beach cottage just south of Monterey. I think they’re safe, well, as safe as anyone can be, but still, I worry.”
She paused, but Sean knew she wasn’t finished and he swallowed his words of sympathy, or perhaps it was empathy since he sure as hell could relate.
“I worry about my parents, about my sister and her husband, about my niece and nephew,” Cassie went on. “I worry about my aunt in Las Vegas and my best friend Desiree who was trying to make her way home from California when the ships first appeared. And you know what? Worry doesn’t do them a damn bit of good and won’t keep them safe.”
Sean cleared his throat, about to say something but she threw a hand up to cut him off.
“I don’t need you to worry about me, McAllister, I need you to let me do my job. That is the only way I know to help them and everyone else left on this planet. I do my job and I follow orders because if the government doesn’t know more than I do, if the army doesn’t have a bigger plan than I could ever fathom to defeat the Silvers, we’re screwed and everyone I love is dead.”
She pursed her lips and folded her arms, signaling she was done.
“Okay.” Sean nodded, although he couldn’t decide whether she was apologizing for her brusque tongue or warning him off against future interference.
Not that it mattered.
It also didn’t matter that he disagreed with her blind faith in the establishment. He did understand and he could respect it.
Such were the times.
Everyone needed something to believe in to get through the day.
- 16 -
Chris
An hour or more had passed since they’d heard the burst of gunfire. The excitement had settled, any hope Chris had held out for had long since fizzled. He’d been so sure it was Williams, charging in like a bull with a hundred lives. But there’d been nothing after that single round of automatic fire, no attack, no rescue, just this endless waiting to be the unlucky next. Except for the group who’d been red-tagged earlier for rushing the Silver at the gate. They’d stood there, staring at their feet like brain-fried zombies for a long while and then suddenly, as if struck by the same flash of inspiration, they’d curled up into fetal positions on the floor and gone to sleep. They weren’t waiting for anything, oblivious to the fact they’d been given a free pass. The Silvers never
even glanced over them when their buttony blue eyes picked out the next round of victims.
There’d been two collections so far, taking three people away each time. Doc Nate had gone in the last one and it was all Chris could do to not think the worst. Some of the men were optimistic, eager for their turn, anything to get out of here, hoping to be reunited with their loved ones.
All good and well, if you could believe what that Silver had said about them walking out here free, if they proved useful. Whatever that meant. Needless to say, Chris was not a believer. He’d tried, for the sake of his sanity, especially when they’d taken Doc Nate, but he couldn’t imagine any outcome with the Silvers that ended any way but bad.
A shuffle in the passageway got his attention. The Silvers didn’t shuffle, they moved with grace and the same noiseless efficiency with which they killed.
“What now?” Bran muttered aggressively, scrambling up from the corner they’d claimed by the window. He’d been stewing since his dad had been taken.
Chris jumped to his feet, worried. “Hey, don’t do anything rash.”
“You think that makes a difference?” Bran sent him a mutinous look. “Get real, man, we’re dead if we do, dead if we don’t.”
Chris kind of agreed, but the will to live was a strange thing, squeezing out every extra second like it was worth a lifetime. “Just chill, okay?”
“This is fucked up.”
No argument there.
A crowd had already gathered by the gate to see what was happening and Chris had to pick a path over the sleeping red-tags to get a view. A thrill buzzed inside him when he saw Williams, escorted by two soldiers. He did it. And he brought the whole damn army. That thrill turned to confusion a moment later when a Silver appeared around the corner, bringing up the rear.
“Behind you!” someone shouted.
“There’s a Silver!”
Neither the soldiers nor Williams reacted. They just kept walking and Chris’ head started to throb, blood racing too fast and thick through his veins as he looked again, recognized the short, blond-haired man on Williams’ left from the army camp at Little Falls. Captain Davis’ men had been in the procession with the rest of the town, they’d walked themselves into this prison along with everyone else. Hadn’t they?
Had Williams already freed them? Right on the heels of that thought was the realization that Williams wasn’t walking with them, he was being escorted. He was unarmed and the soldiers carried rifles. No one was shooting at the Silver at their backs.
Williams gaze scanned the faces behind the gate as he approached, found and stuck on Chris. His expression remained flat, no flicker of recognition in his eyes. Anyone else, and Chris would have assumed they’d been red-tagged by the Silvers’ mind-slating trick. But this was Williams. I’ll just assume he’s happy to see me. Or maybe not, given the circumstances.
The soldiers did an about turn at the gate, facing Williams with their rifles at the ready.
“I know who you are, that secret service bodyguard, right?” the older, bulkier of the two said to him. “I know what you’re capable of, but don’t try it, okay? I will put a bullet through you. I don’t want to, but we won’t risk the safety of everyone just because you think you have a mission.”
Safety of everyone? Chris baulked at the blatant lie. Tell that to Mr Henderson!
Williams merely gave a stiff nod without batting an eyelash.
The soldiers moved aside, knocking Williams roughly with the butt of a rifle to move him along with them to make way for the approaching Silver.
Chris couldn’t wrap his head around it. Judging by the quiet restlessness surrounding him, he wasn’t the only one having a hard time figuring this out. Were Captain Davis and his men working with the Silvers? Well, obviously…but why? Chris glanced at the small heap of Mr Henderson’s remains. Not for the safety of everyone, that was for sure.
The only sensible explanation was that they’d been red-tagged, turned into mind-slaves. But they didn’t look, speak, act like their minds had been wiped clear to make space for s single, oppressive, planted suggestion…to do what? Turn traitor on their own people?
The Silver loomed at the gate.
“You are please to stand back,” he spoke in that monotonic tone, the most polite aliens in the universe. When they weren’t obliterating the human race.
The press of people sank backward like a human wave, flowing in and around the red-tags who lay there on the ground like doormats—a stark reminder of why it was best to shut up and obey when a Silver commanded. Free pass or not, Chris would rather face what came next than have all control stripped away again. That had felt like a violation from the inside out.
The Silver swirled his long fingers in a downward spiral against the wire mesh of the gate and the metal melted apart to form a doorway. Williams was shoved through and as the Silver retreated a couple of steps, the opening re-sealed. The Silver walked off, down the passage and out of sight, and the soldiers followed, their devotion and duty apparently seamlessly transferred to the enemy for whatever baffling reason.
Williams took a moment to find Chris all over again, started toward him when Mayor Preston pounced into his path.
“You came from the outside?” Mayor Preston said, the words rushing from his mouth. “Do they know what’s happening to us?”
“Has a truce been declared?” another pushy man demanded to know. “Is that why we’re working with them?”
“Blind and damned stupid,” a third man grunted. “If we were all working together like stinking happy pigs in the mud, then why are we locked in here and they’re out there. Look at us…” His eyes darted to Mr Henderson’s ashes.
“I didn’t come here with your answers,” Williams said, the authority in his voice carrying even though he dialed the volume way down. “I know as much as you, probably less.”
That wasn’t the end of it, but after another few minutes of getting nothing useful out of Williams, he was left alone to drag Chris off to one side. “Are you okay?”
His gaze clung to Williams, seeking reassurances, but the man’s presence in itself just raised more uncertainties. “What are you doing here?”
“I followed your breadcrumbs.”
“You were supposed to rescue us,” Chris said impatiently. “Not get locked up inside with us.”
“I miscalculated,” Williams said, putting his back to the wall with eyes on the room.
“You don’t miscalculate.”
“I didn’t expect to find Silvers hosting this party,” Williams said dryly.
Bullshit. The unexpected never caught Williams off-guard.
Williams titled his jaw closer and said softly, “McAllister and Beth are outside the wall, working on a plan.”
“Let’s hope it’s better than yours.”
“Don’t worry, I have the utmost faith in McAllister.”
“Ah, so that’s why you allowed yourself to get caught.” Chris smiled grimly. “Well, babysitting me up close and personal won’t help either of us if they don’t get here soon.”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you seen the women and children?” Chris countered. “They separated us as soon as we got here.”
Williams looked at him, one of those silent, assessing looks that usually meant he was playing mind doctor and calculating the fastest route to get Chris where he wanted him. “They’re being held in a room, a caged cell like this, in another wing,” he said. “I saw your friend, Rachel. She’s okay.”
“How long ago was that?”
“About an hour.”
“When we heard the gunfire?” asked Chris, and didn’t trust the flicker of relief he felt at the answering nod.
He didn’t know if the Silvers were taking them, too. He didn’t know if they’d be on the same schedule, roughly every three hours or so. He did know this: a lot could change in an hour.
As always, Williams read his face like a book. “Chris, I’m sorry I can’t tell you more. I didn�
�t get far before they trapped me and contrary to what you think, I didn’t make it easy. And I’ve been stuck in an interrogation room until they brought me here.”
“The Silvers interrogated you?”
Williams shook his head. “Captain Davis and his technique was less than impressive.”
“Did he seem normal?”
“As opposed to?”
Chris started at the beginning, repeating what Doc Nate had told him about the army directing everyone to the town hall. When he got to the part where he’d gotten kidnapped by Jake and Todd, he glanced across the room. Todd had been taken and Jake sat hunched against the opposite wall, knees pulled up and head down. The kid’s day had been rough enough without unleashing Williams on him.
“I was at the river,” he merely said, “and didn’t realize what was happening until I met the townsfolk on the march. I followed for a while, but then the Silver red-tagged me and—”
“Red-tagged?” Williams cut in.
“Yeah, they shoot you with this red laser and it empties your head,” Chris tried to explain.
“I know what you’re saying,” Williams said. “They did that to you?”
“All of us,” Chris said. “Then it’s as if…thoughts are planted, I guess, that’s what it felt like. Not actual commands, just a suggestion to walk, to follow.”
Williams frowned. “That’s new.”
“Then you fall asleep…” Chris pointed at the spread of men curled up on the ground. “And when you awake—”
“—your brain comes online again.”
Chris grimaced. “That sounds about right but do you think that’s what’s happening with the soldiers?”
“I’m not sure.” Williams went silent as he thought that through. “They appear fully cognitive, in control of their thoughts and actions. But if the Silvers are messing with our minds, we don’t really know what they’re capable of.”