Surviving the Dead (Book 7): The Killing Line

by James N. Cook

  Oh, the joys of owning livestock.

  Presently, the animals came into view and headed straight for the smell of feed. I stood back and refereed as they stuck their long snouts into the trough and scooped up grain with prehensile mouths. The horses were more aggressive than the oxen and tried to edge them out and steal their breakfast. I did not let them. A few taps on the nose with a stick was enough to get them in line, a fact which I beheld with fascination. Horses are large, powerful animals. On average, they weigh upwards of a thousand pounds. They can bite with tremendous pressure and cave a man’s chest or skull in with the flick of a hoof. But give them a light smack on the kisser with a soft willow twig, and they’re putty in your hands. If only the infected were so easy to manage. Humans too, for that matter.

  The drone of an engine picked up in the distance and gained volume as it grew closer. I walked back toward camp and arrived in time to hear the crunch of tires on crumbling asphalt and watch a man emerge from a Humvee in front of the gate. The driver stayed behind the wheel while the other man unlocked the gate and waved the vehicle through. Once it was in, he closed the gate without locking it.

  “Looks like the welcoming committee has arrived,” Elizabeth said.

  “Indeed.”

  The man climbed back into the Humvee and it rolled sedately toward us. When they were twenty or so feet away, the Humvee stopped and three men in Army fatigues climbed out.

  “Sergeant First Class Brian Thornberg,” the tallest of them said, walking ahead of the other two. He had olive skin, brown eyes, and what I could see of his head beneath his hat looked shaved and was an even tone with the rest of his skin. He offered a hand. I shook it. “You must be Mr. Riordan.”

  “Yes, Eric Riordan,” I said, surprised he knew my name already. “This is Elizabeth Stone and Sabrina Garrett.”

  “A pleasure. You in charge here?”

  “When I’m allowed to be.”

  Thornberg kept his expression neutral, but I could tell he didn’t think I was funny. “I need the three of you to come with me for just a little while. Major Santino has been informed of the attack on your caravan and would like to speak with you personally. Any information you might offer could be very helpful in tracking down whoever attacked you.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Just as soon as we can hire someone to watch our trade and livestock.”

  “Already taken care of,” Thornberg said, nodding to the two soldiers flanking him. I looked them over. Their rank insignia said they were privates, and I would have eaten my boots if either one was a day over twenty.

  “You’ll have to forgive me, Sergeant, but I don’t much care to leave my life savings in the hands of people I don’t know. I’ve noticed over the years that some soldiers have a tendency to avail themselves of other people’s possessions when not properly supervised.”

  Thornberg’s color darkened a bit. “I’m not stupid, Mr. Riordan. I know soldiers sometimes steal things. It’s a failure of leadership. I do not tolerate such things from my men, and I will give you my personal guarantee that none of your possessions will be touched.”

  I didn’t give the sergeant’s personal guarantee much credence, but did not see as I had much choice but to take him at his word.

  “Okay then. Let’s get going.”

  The three of us piled into the Humvee. Sabrina and I took the back seat, Elizabeth rode shotgun, and Thornberg climbed in behind the wheel. The two privates walked behind us until we were through the gate and then closed it, locked it, and stood on either side with their hands resting casually on their rifles.

  “Where we headed?” I asked.

  “Headquarters,” Thornberg said. “It’s not far.”

  I looked at Elizabeth and Sabrina. They had nothing to offer. No one spoke for the rest of the ride.

  *****

  Headquarters turned out to be an elementary school that had somehow avoided the fires that leveled most of the city during the Outbreak. All around us, in the form of scorch marks and craters, was evidence of artillery shells dropped by the Army during Operation Relentless Force. The Army Corps of Engineers, or what was left of it, was hard at work bulldozing large sections of uninhabitable buildings. I wondered what they planned to do with the cleared land.

  The Humvee stopped and Thornberg asked us to follow him. Lacking anything better to do, we did. The interior of the school was bare, clean, and orderly. Soldiers in uniform bustled around carrying out whatever tasks soldiers carry out when they are not killing people or destroying things. There were rows of desks in the student center, radios set up near windows with wires leading toward towers outside, and in a far corner by itself, what appeared to be a civilian owned food and beverage stand. The smell of fried eggs, pork belly, and roasted vegetables made my mouth water. There was a line of bored looking men and women lined up waiting on food orders, some in uniform, some not. I figured the proprietor of the little stand did pretty good business.

  Thornberg led us past all of this to a hallway flanked on either side by what were once classrooms. The desks, decorations, computers, and other early-childhood accoutrements from a lost civilization had been removed and replaced with bunks, foot lockers, crates, and coat racks lined with dangling rifles—a sign of our society’s shifting priorities.

  One room had a couple of pool tables, a foosball table, and several dart boards mounted on a wall. I took note of the ranks on the uniforms we passed and realized we were walking through the senior NCO barracks. I was willing to bet the gymnasium housed the junior enlisted and the officers were quartered somewhere in town, probably in houses not yet rendered uninhabitable.

  We rounded a corner and walked to the end of the hallway. To our left, an entire classroom seemed dedicated to a bank of file cabinets, a radio and associated equipment, and a lone Army officer sitting behind a desk who I could only assume was Major Santino. His door was open and he seemed busy with something on a ruggedized laptop. As we stepped into the entryway, on the far right side of the room against the wall, I saw a metal bunk, footlocker, and a massive cherry-stained wooden wardrobe. The wardrobe was ornate, beautifully constructed, and matched the dull austerity of the room about as well as a cherry blossom in a toilet.

  Thornberg gently cleared his throat and knocked lightly at the door as we entered. Santino raised a finger and clacked away diligently at his keyboard. I took a moment to study him. He was medium height, had a strong build, reddish brown hair cut down to stubble, neatly trimmed moustache, black eyes, healthy-looking tanned skin, and strong facial features that suggested Spanish ancestry. He finished typing, closed his laptop, stood up, and came around the desk to greet us.

  “Good morning,” he said, offering a smile. “I apologize for asking you here so early. I’m Major Gerald Santino.”

  “Yeah, I kinda figured,” I said.

  The smile stayed in place. Major Santino inclined his head and gestured to the three chairs in front of his desk.

  “Please, have a seat.”

  I thought about asking if we had a choice and decided against it. Thereby proving, at least to myself, that I am not always a loud-mouthed provocateur. I sat down. Sabrina and Elizabeth did the same. Santino grabbed a folder from the corner of his desk, opened it, and retrieved a recording device from a drawer. He clicked a button and told the device his name, our names (he mispronounced Riordan), the date and time, and the purpose of the interview.

  “Starting from the beginning,” he said, “please relate the events of the attack to the best of your recollection, Mr. Riordan.”

  “It’s REAR-dun, not REE-or-dan.”

  “Sorry about that, Mr. Riordan.” He said it correctly this time.

  “It happens.”

  “Your statement please?”

  I gave it, omitting the part where Gabe and Hicks rode back and read the raiders’ tracks. If they wanted to include it in their official report, they would. I was not present for that part, and could offer no testimony as to the accuracy of their fin
dings even if I had been. Despite Gabe’s best instructional efforts, I am not much of a tracker.

  When he was finished with me, he asked Elizabeth to go next. She told him I had covered everything. He asked her to give her version anyway. The only difference in her story was instead of lying on her belly in the dirt and shooting at the bad guys, she and Sabrina tied their horses to a telephone pole to act as a decoy if they were followed and then holed up in an abandoned tire shop until the fighting was over. Sabrina’s version was more terse, but otherwise identical. Santino clicked off the recorder and made a few notes in his file.

  “I appreciate your time,” he said. “You never know what information will be helpful with something like this. Best to gather as many clues as you can and hope something shakes loose.”

  I knew at that moment Major Santino was not in the loop as to what Gabe and Hicks were up to. Gabe had probably contacted General Jacobs already, but I could not be sure. I had been hoping the major could tell me something about their progress, but if the information was available, it had not yet filtered down to his level, nor was it likely to do so anytime soon. General Jacobs likes to compartmentalize his operations, each player knowing only his small role and operating with no concept of the larger picture. Dangerous for the people involved, but critical to operational security.

  “Glad we could help,” I said.

  “How long will you be in town?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “In case I have any more questions for you.”

  “Why would you?”

  He shrugged. “I’m sending your statements to Central Command. They’ll cross-reference them against what we already know to try and get a better picture of the incident. Could be something needs clarification, could be I need to notify you of something, could be you remember something you haven’t mentioned yet. Purely precautionary.”

  “Sure,” I said, sounding dubious even to myself. “I don’t know for certain how long we’ll be in town. It’s not safe on the road for just the three of us.”

  “I understand. So you’ll be looking to join a caravan or a convoy, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where to?”

  “Same place Spike’s caravan was heading. The Springs.”

  Santino leaned back in his chair. “We’re rotating troops in the near future. Quite a number of people stationed here will be headed to Colorado.”

  “When?”

  “In two weeks.”

  I looked at Elizabeth. She gave a small nod. Sabrina did the same.

  “Think they’d take us on? We’ll need to bring our livestock and trade.”

  Santino’s dark black eyes shifted to Sergeant Thornberg. “Would you give us a moment, Sergeant? And shut the door.”

  “Yes sir.”

  The door shut. We sat in the quiet room for a few seconds and listened to the building’s generator humming through the walls.

  “Arrangements could be made, Mr. Riordan.”

  “How much?”

  A small grin. “You cut straight to it, don’t you?”

  “This ain’t my first rodeo.”

  “What do you have to offer in consideration?”

  “Consideration? That word implies a contract, Major. Something tells me we’re going to be keeping things off the record.”

  Santino made a flipping motion with one hand. “What would you like to call it then?”

  “A bribe. Because that’s what it is.”

  “I don’t care for that term.”

  I let out a slow breath and rubbed my forehead. “Sure. Whatever. How much?”

  “What do you have?”

  “Tell me what you want, and I’ll tell you what I can do.”

  The negotiation lasted perhaps five minutes. We settled on half a pound of sugar, a pound of dried beans, and a liter of Mike Stall’s moonshine. It was far more than what I would have paid under normal circumstances, especially considering I was spending Elizabeth’s trade, but we did not have much leverage to bargain with. With Liz’s permission, I accepted the deal. We agreed to deliver the goods via third-party courier the day the convoy left. Santino tried to push for half in advance, but I refused flatly, telling him I wouldn’t hand over a crumb until my gear was stowed in a truck, my livestock were loaded in a trailer, and I had personally confirmed all our names and possessions were listed correctly and in detail on an official cargo manifest with the proper seal. Santino said it would be difficult to get all that in writing. I told him I had faith in him. He smugly suggested his original designation of the bribe as consideration was accurate after all. I told him a bribe was a bribe, even with a pretty coating of semantic gloss.

  “Are we all settled then?” Elizabeth interjected. She knew well my innate distaste for corrupt officials, even when I am the beneficiary of said corruption. The last thing we needed here was for me to start an argument. Knowing this did not make me want to start one any less.

  “I believe so,” Major Santino said. He stood and offered a hand. I shook it even though I didn’t want to. Sabrina and Elizabeth did the same.

  “Sergeant Thonberg will take you back to the caravan district.”

  I nodded once and we left.

  THIRTY

  The streets began coming to life as we bumped and creaked over the broken pavement of Dodge City. Sergeant Thornberg was much more talkative now that his official duties were concluded. At Elizabeth’s prompting, he gave us a rough idea of the situation in Dodge. I had to admire the way Liz milked information out of the burly sergeant. She was pretty, and polite, and smiled in all the right places, and it was obvious Thornberg liked what he saw.

  “So the military doesn’t actually control this place?” Elizabeth said.

  “No. We’re not a safe zone or an FOB. Just a regular town.”

  “Could have fooled me with all the security,” I said.

  “We’re on the biggest trade route going east out of the Springs. What you might call a high-value target. The joint chiefs designated the area as vital to economic recovery.”

  “So here you are.”

  “Here we are.”

  “If this place is so important,” Elizabeth said, “where is everybody? We have the caravan district to ourselves.”

  “It’s still early spring,” Thornberg said. “You’re in the off-season. In a month, this place will be a zoo.”

  “So if the military isn’t in charge,” Sabrina asked, “who is?”

  “There’s a mayor and a city council.”

  “Police?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Chief is elected by the city council every four years.”

  “So you’ve had exactly one chief of police.”

  “Yes.”

  “Cops any good?”

  “All right, I guess. Good as can be expected.”

  “What does that mean?” Elizabeth said.

  “Let’s just say the local business interests wield a lot of influence over what goes on around here.”

  The Humvee hit a particularly large bump that caused me to bite the tip of my tongue. I cursed softly and watched a man emerge from the doorway of a sporting goods store pushing a food cart. A gaggle of scrawny children dressed in rags turned a corner and went by at a dead sprint. One of them stopped to pick up a rock and throw it at the Humvee. The rock bounced off the driver’s door with a resounding whack. Thornberg did not seem to notice.

  “Vice?” Elizabeth asked. “Racketeering?”

  “Probably,” Thornberg said.

  “And you don’t try to stop it?”

  “Listen, I’m a soldier, not a cop. It’s not my job to police the civilians. Not without orders from on high, anyway. Our job is physical security. The Army doesn’t get involved in local affairs unless the locals disturb the flow of trade.”

  “That ever happened?” I asked.

  “Once.”

  “What did the Army do?”

  Thornberg grinned over his shoulder. The curl of his thin lips over bare teet
h had a nasty brutality about it. “We laid the fucking hammer down,” he said.

  The Humvee rolled to a halt in front of the caravan district. The only three buildings across the street that did not look like they were about to collapse were now occupied. I was able to determine by the wares on display that one was a bar and grill, one sold weapons and ammunition, and one was a brothel. Charming.

  “Your kind of place, huh?” Sabrina nudged me with her elbow and tilted her head toward the whorehouse. I glanced at the underfed women slouching on the building’s stoop with their crudely painted faces and tired, cynical eyes. Compared to Allison they looked like a gaggle of cow flops.

  “Not even in the wild days of my youth.”

  “Hate to tell you,” Thornberg said. “But the caravan district gave rise to sort of a red light district around here. The peddlers can’t go through the gate—it’s one of the few places we do control—but it’s a short walk for anyone interested.”

  “Duly noted,” I said.

  As I got out of the Humvee, Thornberg rolled down his window. “Take a word of advice?”

  “Sure.”

  He motioned me closer. “You want to get out of the caravan district. Ain’t safe outside the gate after dark. I know a guy runs a tight business. Warehouse, livery, hotel, everything you need. He’s not cheap, but you get what you pay for around here.”

  “I’m new in town. Got directions?”

  He gave them to me and said, “Ask for Ross. Tell him I sent you.”

  I thanked Sergeant Thornberg and watched him drive away.

  “If you think for one second that fucker isn’t getting kickbacks,” Sabrina said, “you’re an idiot.”

  “I’d be amazed if he wasn’t. Makes me wonder what other graft the Army has going on around here.”

  Elizabeth began walking toward the gate. “Let’s hope we don’t have to find out.”

  *****

  Ross was a tall black man with a shaved head, graying goatee, and eyes just slightly less merciful than those of a great white shark. His face was smooth and unlined, and his age could have been anywhere from thirty to sixty. I told him Sergeant Thornberg had sent me. He nodded, finished polishing the glass in his hand, and sat down on a stool behind the bar. At the moment, the lobby of his hotel, which doubled as a restaurant and watering hole, was mostly empty. A couple of old men sat at a table in a corner playing cards and slowly sipping grain alcohol. A prostitute slouched in a chair near the stairway leading to the rooms upstairs. The place was newly constructed from raw wood and had a distinctly Old West feel to it. The only thing missing was a pair of batwing doors at the entrance.