Redaction: The Meltdown Part II

by Andrews, Linda

  His black eyebrows met in a vee above his nose. “What the fuck!”

  “That’s what this little lesson is about, isn’t it?” She set her hand on his chest but couldn’t quite bring herself to push him away. “Your unique experience gives you a better perception of the dangers. I agree.”

  “My unique experience?” He stepped back. “I’m an ex-con, not some MBA, soft-handed cover boy with the right connections. Put Prince Charming as your second.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Stuart placed himself above the needs of the whole.” That was not the characteristics of a great leader.

  “Just smile and flirt with him a little and he’ll do whatever you say.”

  Smile? Flirt? She shoved him, pushing him backward. What century did he think this was? “I will do no such thing.”

  “Then unbutton your shirt and flash—”

  “Don’t say it.” She snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Don’t even think it.”

  “Stuie can be like the Vice-President. They don’t do much except hide during a crisis.”

  That did fit Stuart’s personality, especially the hiding part. “That would satisfy his followers.”

  And keep them on the buses. Yes, it was a very good plan.

  “I’ll take security.”

  “I hardly think—”

  “You think people are basically decent.”

  He said that like it was a bad thing. She folded her arms across her chest. “Most of them are.”

  She’d never forget the lessons of Casa Grande or their stop at Burgers in a Basket.

  “Maybe during the initial crisis, they’re too shocked to misbehave. But the crisis is over.”

  “No, it isn’t.” Hello? They were leaving the cities, heading off to the wilds of Colorado to start again.

  “The point is, there’s a vacuum in the authority department. Some people are going to give in to their baser instincts and others are going to let them.” He cupped her elbow and steered her out of the kitchen.

  Let them? No, that couldn’t happen. Yet, normal looking women had flagged them down in Casa Grande. And the men with guns hadn’t worn a black hat or twirled handlebar mustaches. Neither had they looked like monsters. “Evil happens when good men do nothing.”

  “Yeah, something like that. And once, you start sliding down that slope, it’s easy to keep going.”

  Was that what happened to him? She’d bite her tongue off before asking. Besides, what did it really matter anymore? That world was over and he’d been nothing but honorable since. “Can you keep us on the straight and narrow?”

  He shrugged and stalked past the table and chairs. “Straight and narrow doesn’t exist anymore, Princess. We’re talking about survival.”

  Despite his words, she knew they were not mutually exclusive things. “I should tell Deputy Pecos about your new duties.”

  “No need.” Eddie held open the door for her. “We decided after Casa Grande.”

  They knew yesterday but were only just now telling her? She slapped open the outside door. “Thanks so much for telling me.”

  “Don’t bend your tiara, Princess.” He caught up with her and turned her deeper into the camp. “He’ll be keeping an eye on things during the day, and I’ll take the night watch.”

  She stopped at the next tent. No sign dangled from the canvas but biohazard tape curled on the ground. The wind whipped around the corner and she detected the odor of decaying bodies. Not this tent then. She faced Eddie. “Does Pecos know about you…”

  She didn’t want to throw it in his face, but the lawmen of her acquaintance had black and white views that she doubted even the apocalypse could shake loose.

  “He knows.” With the flashlight, Eddie gestured to a tent two rows down and on the other side. Bright red Biohazard tape sealed the edges of the door. “We found the supplies over there.”

  An ache built behind her eyeballs. She pinched the bridge of her nose to keep it from spreading. He’d allowed her to wander all over camp when he’d known where the medicines and food were all along. “Why didn’t you just say so from the beginning?”

  “You didn’t ask.”

  She stomped through the puddles. “I shouldn’t have to ask. You had information, you should have shared it.”

  “I just did.”

  Ooh. She wanted to…to punch him. She shook her fists out. What was it about the man that brought her to the brink of violence? “If I had this information, I might have gotten more sleep.”

  “Nah.” He pulled a knife from his pocket and flicked it open. Light winked from the blade as he cut the tape. “You would be up all night worrying about someone stealing it.”

  Maybe, but she would have liked the option to worry about having too many supplies as opposed to not having enough.

  “Princess? Eddie?” Deputy Pecos jogged up to them. “You better come quick. Stuie is waking his people. They’re lighting up the camp.”

  Her heart stopped. On a night like this, the light would be a beacon for the bad guys.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Aunt Mavis?”

  David blinked awake and reached for his rifle. Cold metal brushed his fingers; he wrapped his hands around the barrel. Underneath him the air mattress hissed. He sat up and aimed for the tent’s door. The wind bowed the fabric. “Who’s there?”

  “Aunt Mavis?” The woman’s voice dissolved in a fit of coughs.

  He twisted to the left, looking for the source. A black walkie-talkie tumbled onto the yellow floor.

  “Are you sure we’re not already out of range?”

  Mavis mumbled in her sleep and shimmied closer to him. Her arm tightened around his waist.

  He tucked the sleeping bag around her shoulders, leaned across her and scooped up the walkie. “Hello?”

  “You have to release the talk button if you want to hear their response.”

  David grinned. Leave it to Medic Johnson to point out the obvious. Obvious was good this time of the morning especially with no coffee in sight.

  “Oh. Okay, I—” Sunnie’s voice disappeared.

  Pressing the talk button, he whispered into it. “Hello?”

  “David?” Sunnie chirped. “Is Aunt Mavis with you?”

  “Yeah.” Slipping his hand under the sleeping bag, he set it on her shoulder. “She’s sleeping at the moment.”

  She had just gotten to bed a couple of hours ago, in fact. If the anthrax didn’t kill her, she would work herself to death. And everyone here would let her, because she had the plan. He had to protect her.

  “Oh.”

  He swallowed hard. Damn. Despite having her soft body curled against his, he was in a hard spot. Letting her sleep would prevent her from talking to her niece, but waking her might affect her health and everyone’s survival.

  “I guess you should let her sleep.”

  Fuck it. “No.” He squeezed Mavis’s shoulder, shaking her gently. “I’ll wake her. She’s been wanting to talk to you for days.”

  “Are you sure?” Sunnie coughed again.

  “Lay down,” Johnson ordered. “Or I’ll take away the walkie. You’ve got a long way to go before you’re recovered and if you relapse the Sergeant-Major will have my ass.”

  And other more sensitive parts.

  “Mavis.” David leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Wake up.”

  Her lashes fluttered against her pale cheeks.

  “Mavis.” He kissed her forehead. “Time to wake up.”

  She flattened her palm against his nose and pushed. “Give me another hour of sleep then we can have sex.”

  He chuckled. The woman had a one track mind. After checking to see that the talk button hadn’t been depressed, he tugged her hand off his face and slipped the walkie into it. “Sunnie wants to talk to you.”

  Her eyes popped open. “Sunnie.”

  “She’s awake.” He lifted her hand with the walkie in it so she could see. “They’re about to pull out and there’s no telling how long y
ou have until they’ll be out of range.”

  Mavis winked at him then sat up. “Ooh, better than sex.”

  “Not the way I do it.” He smiled and crawled out of the sleeping bag. Leaning over, he grabbed his boots and stuffed his feet inside.

  “You don’t have to leave.” She snuggled deeper into the sleeping bag and bit the walkie’s antennae.

  “I’m on burial detail in fifteen minutes and need coffee.”

  “Bring me some?”

  “Nope.” He shrugged into his jacket. His fingers fumbled with the zipper.

  “Why not?” She grabbed his waistband and held him in place. “If it’s about the sex remark, I apologize. You’re great. The best! I—”

  Her arm wrapped around him when he twisted. After a moment, he slanted his mouth across hers to shut her up. As soon as she relaxed, he pulled away. “No coffee, until zero-six-hundred. I don’t want anyone to know you’re awake.”

  Releasing him, she snuggled into the pillow. “You really are great, the best.”

  She kept talking like that and his head would rise far above the bars on his sleeve. “See you at six.”

  “Five forty-five.” She patted his side of the sleeping bag. “I’ll keep your spot warm.”

  Hell of an incentive to be on time. He unzipped the flap and crawled out of the tent. A brisk wind scoured his cheeks. After sealing Mavis inside, he stuffed his hands in his pockets. Frost crunched underfoot and cold needled his nose. Snores sounded from the large TEMPER barracks on his right.

  Generators hummed around him and powered the lights shining down on the green and mud brown camp. Clumps of tan speckled the vehicles lined up against the rutted road. A personnel carrier’s headlamps shone as it backed against the abandoned power plant. A banner bearing the familiar red cross hung from a window with no pane. A woman in blood-stained scrubs carried a bag of fluids and ran along the side of the stretcher two Airman ferried to the truck.

  “Coffee’s on.” Lister’s words came out on a cloud. “Doc up?”

  “No, Sir,” he lied. Technically, Mavis was in charge and she ordered him not to return until quarter to six. As far as he was concerned, she was sleeping until zero-six-hundred.

  “Good.” Lister jerked his head toward the canteen. “Your boy, Robertson, has requested a secure line.”

  Robertson? If something was wrong, wouldn’t Sunnie have said? He glanced back at Mavis’s tent. Doc wasn’t running for the river, so it couldn’t be too bad.

  “The girl thinks they haven’t left yet.”

  He checked his watch. Fear soured his mouth. “They should have been on the road fifteen minutes ago.”

  “They were, then they had to stop and that’s all Robertson would report to a mere Marine Corps General.”

  His ‘oh shit’ meter blew the scale. Fuck! Robertson was a damn good soldier when he set his mind to it, he wouldn’t withhold information unless he had cause. “Where?”

  “This way.” Lister marched past the canteen and strode through the rows of barracks. He turned left at the third one. Stepping over the ropes securing the tents, he continued on.

  Outside the light bubble, animals rustled in the darkness, studied them with glowing eyes. Clouds scuttled across the horizon, blotting out the stars. His nose pricked with moisture.

  “Snow’s in the forecast to four thousand feet.” Lister sipped his coffee. “We’re above that now.”

  Wonderful. So much for a new day bringing better news. “At least, we’ll be sticking to the highways.”

  “Too bad there isn’t anyone to man the snowplows.”

  There was that. But surely, the snowfall couldn’t be that deep. Yet. He followed Lister onto a path. Light poured from a building behind a chain link fence. Men in uniform paced in front of the window. Oh, his day was just getting better. He straightened his uniform and opened the door for the general.

  Lister preceded him inside. He crumpled his Styrofoam cup and tossed it on the floor. “Dawson’s here, Robertson. Now what the fuck is going on!”

  The door hit David’s backside then the latch clicked in the lock. Airmen in blue, regular Army in tan and Marines in olive glared at him. Enough brass hung on their collars to decorate a large Christmas tree. He would hand Robertson his ass if this wasn’t important.

  “Sergeant-Major?” The private’s voice trembled in the computer’s speakers across the cramped room.

  The Marine working the communications fiddled with the cords. A black line serpentined across a warped metal desk and climbed to a satellite dish wedged in the window.

  The hair on the back of his neck stood up. Robertson’s voice never shook, not even when they were pinned down in Kandahar. “Here, Private.”

  “Are you alone?”

  Lister looked about ready to chew on the metal window screens and spit shrapnel.

  “Absolutely.” If you didn’t count the ten officers crowding the space thinking they were about to overhear something that fell under ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ purview.

  “We woke up this morning and our coms are dead, except Ray and Vegas’s who were on guard duty.”

  Lister’s eyebrows retreated to his hair line. The Airmen shook their heads.

  David’s gut clenched. “That’s a hell of a coincidence.”

  “Yeah, we thought so too. Then Vegas was hit from behind and his com taken.”

  Son of a bitch! They were talking sabotage? “And Ray?”

  It would take a lot to bring down the two-hundred eighty pound munitions mule. But desperate people did crazy things.

  “Fuck, Big D! Whose do you think I’m talking to you on?”

  Ray’s obviously. He scratched the stubble on his chin. That’s what he got for trying to think without mainlining a couple of cups coffee. But deliberate sabotage. Desperation would almost be better. This was a planned attack with some intelligence behind it. Against his men! Goddamnit, he should be with them. “Any of our people injured?”

  “Vegas isn’t seeing straight, but he was always messed up in the head.” Robertson’s laugh was forced.

  “How many men at your disposal?”

  “There’s the eight of us, three Marines are down but more than happy to shoot. Colonel Dobbins is capable even confined to the wheelchair and then there are the bow and arrow gramps and grandson that bagged us a couple rabbits this morning.”

  Fourteen people across four trucks and God only knew how many enemies. “You’re spread thin through the trucks.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  His skin tightened. There was more? What on Earth possessed him to leave Mavis’s bed?

  “Singleton and Janovich are driving the first two trucks. They didn’t stop when we broke down.”

  Broken down trucks and stolen coms. “What the hell happened?”

  “I ran over a board with nails conveniently wedged under the passenger side wheels. I recognize the boards from the house where we stayed last night.”

  But that didn’t explain how they got under their wheels. “So you have one truck down?”

  “No, Sergeant-Major. Two.” Robertson cleared his throat. “Vegas was behind us. His brake line was cut but he was able to stop with a little help from our bumper.”

  Well, shit!

  “Son of a bitch.” Lister punched the wall. Flakes of plaster rained onto the dirty floor.

  The other officers looked like they wanted to follow his lead.

  The next question hovered on his lips. He didn’t want to ask it. “Anything else?”

  “Michaelson is pissed that someone tampered with his babies but the grease monkey packed a few parts and he’s doing God knows what with a piece of hose, duct tape and bubblegum to get both trucks moving again.”

  “What the hell are they using for brake fluid?” Lister barked.

  “I didn’t ask, Sir.” A voice muttered through the speakers. “Looks like we’re ready to move out.”

  “Impressive,” Lister checked his watch, “fo
r the Army.”

  For anyone. The jarheads couldn’t do any better. Michaelson had oil in his veins. “Any idea who did it?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me.” Engine noise rumbled through the background then a door slammed. “I can tell you no one breached our perimeter last night.”

  “So it must have been an inside job.” Punching the wall seemed like a good idea right about now. But he wouldn’t. The Marines already thought too highly of themselves and he wouldn’t let the Army down by following the Corps’ example.

  “Why the fuck did we save the civilians if they were going to turn on us?” Lister crossed to the Marine by the computer. “Get me Lieutenant Rogers.”

  Many of the officers nodded.

  David shook his head. These were his people. They couldn’t abandon them, neither could they survive with just a military family. Too many of them were sick. “Who do you suspect?”

  “No one. Everyone,” Robertson growled. “Hell, Big D, we were up most of the night pulling bodies out of the water, aside from Mavis’s neighbors and the Colonel’s group, I really didn’t see who we had with us.”

  Clasping his hands behind his back, Lister paced the small room—a panther looking for an opportunity to pounce. “Anything odd about who’s in your vehicles?”

  David stepped against the wall to give the general room.

  “We have the sick and injured, plus the volunteers who are helping with nursing duties.” Robertson spoke over a deep baritone. “Ray says to tell you that there are a lot of old folks with us, but that makes sense as we’ve got Johnson.”

  Lister stopped and addressed his fellow officers. “Or someone is making off with the prime beef.”

  That would be bad. Very, very bad. Mavis updated her Sim last night. The survival rate had plummeted to less than one in ten thousand, military personnel under thirty had lottery ticket odds. “Who handled the seating arrangements today?”

  “Dunno. Everyone was sorted when we finished chow.”

  The skin between David’s shoulderblades itched. That was a little too convenient. “Keep the com safe and conserve the batteries. Check in every hour on the hour.”

  “Understood, Sergeant-Major. Robertson out.”