Redaction: Dark Hope Part III

by Linda Andrews

  An old man stretched out on a vinyl bench and snored. His big toe poked out of the hole in his gray sock. Two young women pulled their bucket seats together and giggled at something on the monitor before them. A gray-haired woman glanced up. Her pink knitting needles clacked together.

  Dirk nodded to her.

  She huffed and raised her chin.

  Bitch. He was someone worthy of respect. And he would get it too, when his candidate won the election. And speaking of elections… He snaked a path through the collection of seats, aiming for his partner, Jake.

  “How do you like our next president?” Dirk squeezed between the coffee table and the bench seat. Once in the center, he dropped onto the upholstery. The cushion sighed as it adjusted to his weight. Ahh, much better for his back. Perhaps he should have one relocated to his room to serve as his bed.

  Jake glanced up from his laptop. “He hasn’t won the election yet.”

  Was he having a fit because his first pick, Stuart Graham, hadn’t wanted to run? Dirk waved away the negativity. “Gavin is winning folks over.” He chuckled. “Although the ladies are falling for him faster than the men. I found two women in his bed this morning.”

  “I thought your campaign was about moral superiority.”

  “It is. Gavin doesn’t have blood on his hands.” Not like Mavis or her military allies.

  “Being a man-whore is hardly morally superior.” Jake leaned back in his seat.

  Man-whore? Dirk drummed his fingers on his tablet computer. Jake must have had a fight with his girlfriend. “He’s a man. We have certain needs. Besides, it was consensual.”

  Jake raked his fingers through his hair. Brown strands clung to his hand. “In case you haven’t noticed, there’s about five males to every four females. For Gavin to keep two, some men must go without. That’s not going to sit well.”

  “Ah, yes. I can see why this might be a problem before the election.” Afterward… Well, the breeding program would be one of the first things implemented. Their new civilization would require laborers, strong beasts of burden like the horses in the pastures nearby.

  He might even breed with Mavis. Although he had to face the fact that she might need to go. He couldn’t have the lower orders getting ideas, or chance her leading them.

  It would be a sad waste of brainpower, but sacrifices had to be made.

  “Have any other insights you want to share?”

  Jake shut down his laptop and leaned back. “No.”

  “Oh, come on.” Dirk scooted forward, perching on the edge of his seat. “We have to shake up the sheep at tonight’s debate.”

  “Doctor Spanner agreed to a debate?”

  “It was like the shootout at the OK Corral. Gavin stood on the table and called her out in front of everyone.” It was brilliant. And all Dirk’s idea. He didn’t want his partner to think he was the only brains behind the regime change. “She had no choice but to agree.”

  “Who are you going to get to moderate?”

  “You.” Another of his brilliant ideas. Having the ‘neutral’ moderator on his side would ensure Mavis looked like a bumbling fool. Dirk adjusted his waistband so his belt buckle didn’t dig into his gut.

  Jake’s eyes widened. “Me?”

  “You are the law in these parts.” Dirk lowered his voice when a handful of men walked into the room. “Plus you agreed that the elections were a constitutional necessity.”

  “I did that to stop you from jeopardizing all our lives. As for the constitutionality of it, Doctor Spanner is the only government official alive whose office is listed in the order of succession. By law, she should be able to serve the final three years of the late president’s term.”

  “So you’re saying even though we’ll win the popular vote, she’ll use the military to keep her position.” Damn. They may have to fall back to Plan B.

  “Knowing Doctor Spanner, I don’t think she’d do that.”

  “But it is a possibility.” Good thing the legal beagle was on his side. Dirk scooted back and stretched his arms out along the back of the bench seat. There was no way around it. Mavis would have to go. “Have you told them this?”

  “No.”

  Good. Dirk knew he could count on the other man’s discretion.

  Jake massaged his temples. The nearby gray hair stood on end. “Besides, it may be a moot point.”

  “How so?”

  “I’ve had about a hundred people ask me for an early ballot. And every time I open my email, I have another twenty requests. Some have even flat out told me they would vote for Doctor Spanner.”

  “What!” Dirk leapt from his seat.

  The old lady shushed him.

  What the fuck! He flipped her the bird. “Yarn doesn’t have ears, you old bat.”

  The four men glanced in his direction. The beefy one on the right cracked his knuckles. “Show a little respect, Benedict Arnold.”

  Asshole. Dirk flopped down on the seat. He’d remember this little incident when he rose to power. His laptop bounced and slid toward the floor. He caught it and shoved it back against the seat. “You can’t do that. We haven’t had our first debate.”

  If people voted before tomorrow, they’d lose.

  “Early voting is acceptable.” Jake sighed and closed his eyes. “I can’t stop it.”

  “What about a delay? Two weeks.” Surely, that wouldn’t be too much to ask. With his men working, he’d have enough gold in his kitty to buy votes. “You don’t have ballots or anything yet.”

  “Sally has everything figured out. A fingerprint scan will ensure everyone votes only once. They’ll get one piece of paper to write in the name of their candidate. You’ll have one monitor count the votes. Doctor Spanner will appoint someone to verify. And Doctor Jay will oversee the process and record the results.”

  Fuck. Dirk ground his fist into his hand. There had to be a way around that. “What about you? What will you do?”

  “Stand by and watch. By saying that the election should occur, I am no longer a neutral by-stander and had to recuse myself.”

  “So we’ve lost before a single vote has been cast.” Dirk pounded on his knees. “It’s not fair.”

  “It’s perfectly legal.” Jake picked up his laptop and balanced it on his legs. “Not everyone will vote early. There’s a chance your man will win.”

  His man. Dirk caught the word. So his partner was already distancing himself, assigning blame for the loss to come. Well, he was tired of doing the grunt work while Mr. Lawyer here wrote his instructions from the safety of his laptop.

  Dirk tapped his tablet and opened his email. As usual, he addressed it to Sympatico but cc’d Gavin, Cole and Ralph—his right hands. Plan B is a go.

  He hit send and shutdown his laptop. Soon guns would be dispersed to his people.

  Mavis and her government stooges needed to learn the penalty for cheating the system.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  David stood in the tunnel leading to Section Seven. Water dripped on his head, slid down his cheek. His finger twitched next to the trigger of the M-4 and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. The whole thing had FUBAR written all over it.

  “Sergeant-Major.” Ray fiddled with a spy camera and checked the image on his computer screen.

  David’s former munitions mule looked oddly naked without the duffels of reserve ammo swinging from his massive arms. Thankfully, their reserve supply lay two feet away. He just hoped they wouldn’t need it.

  “When you asked if I wanted an opportunity to pay back the assholes in Section Seven, I kinda had something else in mind.”

  “Yeah. Like spilled blood.” Folgers, the pimply private who had once guarded the National Guard base in Phoenix, hooked one hand around a rung of the rickety wooden ladder disappearing up the air shaft and wedged another camera into place. “Theirs.”

  “You boys shoulda read the brochure.” David peered down the tunnel. Nothing moved in the splotches of light. But hell, there was plenty of da
rkness to hide an elephant. “The Army promises years of boredom crammed between minutes of sheer terror.”

  Ray blew on the lens and polished it on his shirt hem before handing it off to Folgers. “I had hoped to inflict a bit of sheer terror on others today.”

  “I just wanted to kill the fuckers.” Folgers wedged the camera into the ladder so the passageway was covered whether their targets were coming or going.

  “Damn, you make me all misty.” David brushed his dry eye. The kid had come a long way from freezing on patrol to this.

  Ray grinned and tapped the computer. Side-by-side images of the tunnel appeared on the screen. “We’re good.”

  Folgers swung like a monkey from the ladder before dropping to the ground. He crouched for a moment before straightening and swinging his carbine around. “What’s next, Sergeant-Major?”

  A shadow moved in the passageway leading to their living area. David straightened. Had it been a trick of the light?

  “A little hunting maybe?” Ray tucked the laptop into the munitions bag and hefted it over his shoulder.

  “The section is clear.” They’d already swept it. No people. No bricks of C-4. No blasting caps. And not a one of the hundred or so handguns, rocket propelled grenade launchers or M-4s missing from the storeroom. “We need to report to Lister and figure out a game plan.”

  Too bad he hadn’t found Quartermain. The kid would have provided some much needed intell.

  “Given their firepower, I hope some brassicle isn’t going to plot the op.” Ray sauntered forward. “I don’t relish being cannon fodder because some asshole officer wants to make a name for themselves.”

  “Hell, no.” Folgers walked backward, covering their six. “What’s a brassicle?”

  “A cross between an officer admiring himself in his brass collar ornaments and a testicle.”

  David’s eyes strained in the darkness. Definite movement. And there wasn’t a fucking place to hide anywhere in the tunnel. He swung up his rifle and dropped to one knee. “Identify yourself.”

  Ray dropped, dragging Folgers down with him. The kid paled but kept his attention to their back. Ray pulled a machete from the bag then a Marine-issue SAW. The belt of bullets twinkled in the dim light.

  Shit. Ray really planned to cut someone down either with a long-ass knife or the rapid-fire projectiles of the SAW.

  A man stepped from the shadows but didn’t emerge fully into the light. His arms hung at shoulder-height. “It’s Falcon.”

  David lowered his weapon and marched forward. The fool. Didn’t he smell the violence simmering on the air? “You trying to get a bullet in your ass?”

  “Nah.” The former Special Forces soldier lowered his hands to his sides. Light glinted off the butt of his handgun and the knife handle sticking out of his boot. “I just like to live dangerously.”

  Ray caressed the SAW. “Don’t worry, baby. Papa will take you out to play soon.”

  Folgers jumped to his feet. “Where’d you get the machete? Is there any more?”

  Ray snorted and repacked his weapons. “How many times I gotta tell you. There ain’t no zombies, Coffeeboy.”

  “You don’t—”

  David cleared his throat. He’d rather have his eyes plucked from his head than listen to the Great Debate about giant bugs versus Hell filling up and turning all the dead into walking corpses.

  Water dripped in the silence as his men fell in behind him.

  With his hand on his pistol grip, Falcon joined David. “The package is in sickbay.”

  “How bad is Buchanan?” David glanced back at his men. He hadn’t told them about the missing shit shoveler. Fortunately, they’d learn to listen to what he’d omitted.

  “Got a bit of head trauma, but he’s talking.” Falcon scratched his chin. “Not quite sure if the sense was knocked clean outta him, but the general wants you present for the debriefing.”

  “Copy that.” David sped up to a jog. Maybe, just maybe they’d gotten a break.

  *

  Pushing through the air lock doors, David set his M-4 on the floor of the infirmary. Five of the beds were folded up, opening up the round space. Lister, Johnson, Robertson and Papa Rose crowded around the bed at two o’clock. A bruised face peered through the window in the door opposite the entrance. The man mouthed swear words and pounded on the window.

  Yeah, pal, you’re not getting any sympathy from me. David flipped off the asshole. If it had been up to him, he would have locked him in the room with the glowing patients, not the airlock that separated the two rooms.

  Lister nodded. “Good, we’re all here. Begin again. From the top and don’t leave anything out, Buchanan.”

  David stepped around the men into a clear spot on Eddie’s left. Christ, his face looked like hamburger gone bad. What the fuck had the assholes wanted?

  “I was cutting through the pastures on the way to my stash—” The words slurred as they escaped his blood-caked lips.

  “You have weapons in your stash?” Lister barked.

  Johnson adjusted the tape holding the IV to Eddie’s bruised arm and rolled his eyes.

  David shrugged. It was a valid question. Those weapons might be in more than one place.

  “What the fuck would I need weapons for?” Drool dribbled down Eddie’s chin. He blotted it with his blanket. “I have my stash of parts. Tubing, hoses and shit I took from those engines you were gonna leave out in the wild.”

  Lister grunted. “Go on.”

  “One of them, the ringleader who hits like a girl, tailed me as far as the museum. I was so busy waiting for him to attack, I didn’t pay attention to the asshats in front of me.”

  “And is this your normal morning routine?”

  David shifted to the side as his superior continued the questioning.

  An alarm blared on the heart monitor. Medic Johnson quickly silenced it then adjusted the relay on Eddie’s finger.

  “Hell no. I walk six different routes. Looking for shit that could go wrong.”

  “And you’re not repeating a pattern, cycling through them every six days?”

  David rocked back on his heels. Christ. How long had the terrorists been planning this attack?

  “No, I repeat some mornings and evenings to check my work, but there’s no pattern.” Eddie walked his fingers across the lap table to a plastic cup. He dipped into it and fished out an ice cube.

  Amazing. He could see with his eyes practically swollen shut. David slipped in before his boss could ask the next question. “Who knows about your stash?”

  “Aside from Audra, I didn’t think anyone did.”

  Papa Rose stiffened and focused on the monitor readout.

  Interesting. David would have to ask the counselor his take on the woman.

  “Audra’s the woman making those educational movies. What’s she to you?”

  “Mine,” Eddie growled and fisted the blanket at his side. The electronic beeps sped up. “And she’s not responsible for this. No way.”

  “Settle down, son.” Lister set his hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “We’re not accusing her of anything.”

  Eddie shook off the general. “And I’m not your son.”

  A vein throbbed at Lister’s temple.

  Okay then, this could go south pretty damn fast. David cleared his throat. “How do you think the terrorists learned about your stash?”

  White dotted Eddie’s knuckles. “They probably followed her. She’s beautiful. A real lady. I’ve heard them talk about her before.”

  His heart rate peaked at ninety-one.

  David smiled. He was surprised it wasn’t the other men in the hospital bed. “Is she ever left alone with your stash?”

  Eddie’s beats per minute slowed. “Nah, I’m always there when she shows up.” His lips twisted then he grimaced. “It’s the only place we can be alone without making crazy plans. Communal living has its drawbacks.”

  To a man, they all nodded.

  A stupid shower curtain separating beds was
not an assurance of privacy. Perhaps, David should find this stash place himself. The couple couldn’t be there all the time.

  Lister forced the grin off his face. “Aside from the terrorists dissecting your woman’s attributes, what makes you think they were following her?”

  “They wanted me to tell them where I’d gotten her necklace.”

  Necklace? David blinked. This was about a necklace? What did that have to do with terrorists and their plans for cave and cavern domination?

  Lister tugged his reading glasses from his pocket and chewed on the earpiece. “What did they ask you about, besides the necklace?”

  “That’s was it. Just the necklace.”

  What the fuck! That couldn’t be right. There had to be more than that. David’s fingertips dug into his palms.

  Using the mangled earpiece, Lister scratched his eyebrow. “Is there anything special about the necklace? Is it made of diamonds, rubies, or sapphires?”

  Eddie shook his head once then gasped for breath and stilled. “Not any of those. It’s just a quartz crystal with little gold lines in it.”

  “Gold?” Papa Rose straightened. “Are you sure it was gold?”

  “They repeated it enough times and kinda hammered the point home, if you know what I mean.”

  “Why?” David turned to the counselor. “What do you know?”

  “Eddie’s wasn’t the only attack in the pastures today.” Papa Rose cleared his throat. “The Doc’s niece, Sunnie, was attacked in the museum.”

  “What!” Robertson grabbed Papa Rose’s lapel and shoved his face into the other man’s. “She was supposed to be with Manny. She was supposed to be safe!”

  Mavis’s voice cut across the hospital room. “My niece is unharmed.”

  David slapped his hand to his chest. Goddamn it! How had she snuck in here? They were supposed to be well-trained soldiers.

  Lister turned red and his gray eyebrows dived toward his nose.

  Robertson pushed Papa Rose away and stomped toward Mavis. “Where is she? I wanna see her.”

  Oh, hell! David darted around the bed and planted himself in the private’s path. He understood the smart-ass was worried, but no one, abso-fucking-lutely, no one threatened Mavis. “Stand down, private.”