Redaction: The Meltdown Part II

by Andrews, Linda

  He ground his teeth together. He could drive and shoot his M-4 at the same time. That baby had been with him for years. She wouldn’t like being handled by someone else. She definitely wouldn’t like being swapped out for a peashooter. Damn military regs. Steering with one hand, David accepted the pistol with the other. Such a fucking girlie weapon. “Thank you, Ma’am.”

  “Oh don’t be such a baby.” Rogers checked the clip then the chamber. “I’ll take good care of it.”

  “Her.” He corrected then wished he’d bit his tongue off instead.

  Rogers nodded. “I’ll take good care of her.” Holding her weapon at the ready, but below the window. “How far off is she?”

  David strangled the steering wheel. If the Marine lieutenant insulted his weapon, he’d rip if from her hands, officer or no. No one messed with a soldier’s weapons.

  “Sergeant-Major?”

  “Laser site is on target.” He’d compensated for that as soon as he’d been issued his baby. “Iron site is two degrees to the left.”

  “Thanks.”

  Her finger settled in the groove beside the trigger. The groove he created. His groove. The Humvee dipped low as it rounded a bend. “You should get on your jacket and helmet, Doc.”

  Mavis lifted her jacket to show the Kevlar vest. “I always dress in layers during cold weather.”

  His fingers tingled and he relaxed his grip on the wheel. He should have known she’d be a couple steps ahead of him. Except in one area. “Helmet.”

  She pursed her lips. “Happy now?”

  Hell no! The happy dance didn’t start until they reached Colorado and she was safe.

  She banged his helmet against his upper arm. “Don’t forget your party hat.”

  David pinched the side and ducked to get the thing on. “Happy now?”

  She winked at him. “Now, let’s play a game called why don’t we give Mavis Spanner a weapon.”

  Lister snorted. “You’re not getting a weapon, Doc. You’re ducking and covering when the shooting starts.”

  “I’m very good.” Mavis crossed her arms and glared at the general. “And I’ve shot pretty much every weapon you have.”

  “When you pry the gun from my cold dead hand, it’s yours.”

  Damn. David sincerely hoped that didn’t become a self-fulfilling prophecy. “I could use another set of eyes on the left.”

  Mavis sighed. “Thanks. I need something to distract me from the Earps gearing up for the shootout at the OK Corral.”

  David crested another rise and tapped the brakes. The Humvee’s rear end slid to the right. He eased off the pedal and his borrowed pistol clunked against the wheel as he steered into the skid.

  The lieutenant slammed against the door.

  “What do you see, Sergeant-Major?” Lister leaned into the opening between the bucket seats.

  A trailer shifted to the side of the pick-up behind him and a horse whinnied.

  “Company’s around. Somewhere.” After getting the vehicle under control, David eased to a stop in the middle of the road. Three green John Deere tractors, two white monster trucks and a crumpled Toyota straddled Fossil Creek Road leading into the town of Strawberry. “Looks like they want us to stop.”

  With one foot on the brake, he kept the other over the gas and his hand on her shifter. One way or another, he’d keep Mavis safe.

  Lister looped his comm around his ear. “Convoy halt. We have an obstacle in the road. I repeat, there is an obstacle in the road. Stand by.”

  The channel was left open so everyone could hear, including Trent the bastard’s people if they had stolen a Comm off his men.

  Mavis cleared her throat. “We’re going to have to clear it.”

  Lister flipped open his laptop. “Give me a minute and I’ll get us some Marines to sweep the area.”

  She shook her head and pointed to the balcony on the A-Frame house on the ridge and the bell tower on the stucco church at eleven o’clock. “They’d be picked off on their way up here.”

  “My men can handle it.”

  “You send a group of well-armed Marines up here and whoever’s out there will interpret that as a hostile move.” She checked the zipper at her throat and slid David’s borrowed gloves on her hands. “Two people, preferably women, will move the vehicles.”

  “Oh hell no!” The words roared from his throat. No fucking way would he allow her to risk her life.

  Lister aimed his weapon at Mavis’s legs. “I agree with the Sergeant-Major. You even reach for that door, Doc, and I’ll shoot both your kneecaps off.”

  Mavis covered her knees. “Then who is going to go?”

  “I will, Ma’am. Sir.” Gripping his M-4, Lieutenant Rogers opened her door and slipped out.

  Slamming the Humvee into park, David gripped the lieutenant’s wimpy pistol tighter. Such a stupid weapon. “I’ll be back.”

  He shoved open the door and had boots on the ground in two seconds.

  Rogers cleared the Humvee’s hood, the sweep of the assault rifle tracked the motion of her head. “I’ve got bogeys from ten until two.”

  Hunching as he walked forward, he double checked her findings. Adrenalin pulsed through him, sharpening his senses. “Two on the A-Frame. Two on the bell tower. One had high noon. Three at one behind a mobile home. And another two behind the shed at two o’clock.”

  And them smack dab in the middle. He’d admire their brilliance more if he wasn’t about to get his ass shot.

  “Nice job laying down the crossfire.” Lieutenant Rogers edged closer to the first tractor. “Think any of them have military training?”

  What the fuck did that matter? Whoever was out there could be blind and they still had a pretty good shot at hitting them.

  She released the barrel of the M-4 and reached for the John Deere’s door handle. Bullets strafed the ground in front of her boots. She jumped back with a yelp. “Fall back! And hold your fire.”

  David’s finger twitched on the side of his gun. Like he was a green recruit that needed to be told those were warning shots. Without turning, he retreated to the Humvee and slammed the door shut.

  Mavis’s hands patted his shoulder then his arms. “Are you hurt? Did they shoot you?”

  “I’m fine.” He squeezed her hand through the gloves. “They were warning us off.”

  Lister hurumphed. “Maybe they’re just damn bad shots.”

  Lieutenant Rogers grinned. “Oh, no, Sir. If they’d wanted us dead we would be. We were sitting ducks out there. We counted ten enemy combatants.”

  “Now I’ll call in the Marines.”

  Mavis grabbed the mic, holding it in her fist. “We can’t afford to lose any more people. We’ll try talking to them first.”

  Lister snapped his teeth near her hand. “I bite, Doc.”

  “So do I.” She let go of his mic. “And I’ve been exposed to a lot of very scary diseases. Things that will make your testicles turn purple and shrivel up.”

  That’s his girl. David straightened in his seat. Mavis wouldn’t be bullied by the damn jarheads. “Orders?”

  Rogers sucked her lips between her teeth but he caught the flash of dimples.

  “Sorry, David. Sally. I need you to go out there again.” Mavis’s fingers spasmed on his shoulder. “And I’ll need you to put your weapons on the hood of the car before you approach.”

  Fucking A. Even the pistol was better than nothing.

  Lister scraped his fingers through his buzz cut. “Are they supposed to invite the enemy to a tea party?”

  “No, the enemy is going to invite us to a tea party. Ask them for ten minutes of their time to speak to all survivors. Talk. That’s all.” Mavis sat back in her seat. “Now General, I know how much you like phallic symbols so you have your men unpack those hand grenade launchers you brought with us. Don’t load them, just, you know, flash them around a bit.”

  “I like showing off my toys.” Lister grinned.

  Satan probably wore a similar expression when h
e retrieved the damned. But as David wasn’t about be have his soul collected, he focused on the most immediate problem. “Who’s going to talk to them?”

  “Me.” Mavis shook her finger under Lister’s nose. “And don’t threaten my kneecaps or any other piece of my anatomy. They haven’t rolled out the welcome mat for the military, so a civilian needs to go in. Like it or not, that’s me.”

  “I don’t like it. Think of something else.” Lister practically chewed on the mic. “The toys are being unwrapped.”

  “What civilian do you trust? What civilian knows about Palo Verde?”

  Lister’s eyes narrowed and his jaw thrust forward.

  “Go!” Mavis waved him away. “We’ll have this sorted by the time you come back with their answer.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.” After a quick nod to the lieutenant, David opened his door and pushed outside.

  Rogers unwound his M-4’s strap from her arm. “You should talk. If they are vets, they might prefer stripes over bars.”

  David set his pistol on the hood and held his empty hands in the air. The snow hissed when it hit the hot metal. “Understood.”

  She laid the carbine to rest, pointing at his weapon then raised her hands. Mavis’s and Lister’s muffled voices drifted out the closed windows.

  After a quick nod, they advanced in step. Four feet to the front bumper. Three. Two.

  “What are you stupid?” A bull horn distorted the man’s voice. “We will shoot you!”

  “We just want to talk.” David’s heart galloped over a couple beats. “Ten minutes. That’s all.”

  “Go back the way you came. We don’t need the military here.” The megaphone burped. “We don’t want the military here.”

  “Is the Doc a mind reader or something?” Rogers asked out of the side of her mouth.

  He gritted his teeth. Of course, Mavis would be spot on in knowing civilians’ mentality. She hadn’t been sequestered on a base for the last six months. The men on the A-Frame house and the church’s bell tower aimed their rifles at the sky. “Fossil Creek is flooded. We can’t go back, just forward.”

  “And if we don’t get out of your way, you’ll just use those fancy weapons to blast your way through, is that it?”

  Rogers momentarily dropped all her fingers but one index finger.

  Yeah. He’d identified the speaker as coming from one o’clock. The rusted mobile home could be their command center. “We’re asking nicely for permission to pass. And we haven’t fired a single shot despite you shooting at us.”

  “Why should we believe anything you say?”

  Well, fuck. He didn’t want to offer a reason. Mavis could risk his life all she wanted. He was a trained soldier, used to combat.

  Rogers didn’t have the same investment. “Doctor Mavis Spanner wants to talk to you.”

  Megaphone man stepped out from behind the trailer. “The Surgeon General lady from the broadcasts?”

  “Yes!” He’d have to talk with Rogers later. Hell, maybe he’d just sacrifice her to Lister. She was his jarhead after all. “She told you about the anthrax attack. She nearly got herself shot for acting in the best interests of the people rather than following government protocol.”

  There. That should satisfy the paranoid assholes.

  “We’ll take her and her alone to speak to our people.”

  David’s hands clenched. Over his dead body. “She doesn’t go anywhere without us.”

  He jerked his head toward Rogers. Taking the Marine along should appease Lister. Or not. This was Mavis’s idea.

  “You two and no one else.”

  “Agreed.” Dropping his hands, David backed up to the Humvee. Technically a wimpy little pistol wasn’t a person.

  Truck engines roared to life and black smoke belched from the exhaust of the tractors. The air smelled faintly of French Fries as the vehicles shifted to the side, clearing the road.

  Lister slammed his door. “If one hair on the Doc’s head is harmed, don’t set foot in Colorado.”

  He stalked toward the convoy shouting orders into his mic.

  “That went well.” Rogers lifted the rifle from the hood and climbed into the passenger seat.

  David grabbed her pistol and slid behind the wheel. “Looks like you’ve won all around.”

  Mavis snorted. “That’s what the Sioux thought after creaming Custer at the Little Big Horn. The last four trucks, with several dozen nearly healthy Marines, are staying behind to evacuate those who want to go.”

  A man stood in the center of the road. He raised two pistols, aiming into the air.

  David braked.

  The back passenger’s side door opened. A man in a ski mask entered. He set the shot gun on his lap with the business end pointed at Mavis. “Are you Doctor Spanner?”

  Son of a bitch! David reached for the pistol.

  Rogers grabbed it first and targeted the guy through the seat.

  “Yes, I am and that weapon is making my security detail twitchy.” With one finger, she moved the muzzle so it pointed at David’s back.

  His lover might be a little too eager to sacrifice him. He frowned as two pistols waved him to the right. As soon as they passed, the two tractors blocked the road behind them.

  “You have identification.” The man rolled the ski mask up his face. Long blond hair spiked out of the knit fabric.

  “None that couldn’t be faked.” She lifted off her seat and dug two fingers into her pocket. A black wallet bounced on the seat between them. “My Arizona driver’s license, my United Nations ID, my Department of Defense ID, my Center for Disease Control Id, and my US AMRIID identification should be in there.”

  The man arched a pale eyebrow. Picking up the wallet, he flipped it open and dealt out the colorful cards. “You have any id not issued by the government?”

  Bastard. Like the government wasn’t good enough for him.

  “Blood donor card. A positive.”

  The ids sifted through his fingers. He caught a snapshot. “Who’s this?”

  Mavis inhaled a shaky breath. “My husband and son.”

  “And they are—”

  “Dead.” She snatched the picture back and pressed it to her chest. “Within weeks of each other.”

  But not of the Redaction and not within weeks of each other. She’d lied.

  Mavis caught his eye in the rearview mirror; she looked out her window and sniffed.

  The man stuffed the cards back into the wallet and shoved them at her. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  She cleared her throat. Her hands trembled when she tried to insert the picture back inside. How much was real and how much was fake, he couldn’t say. One thing was for sure, she hadn’t been kidding when she’d claimed that she could be both predator and defender depending on the needs of those around her. He just hoped he remained on her good side.

  “Thank you. But we’ve all lost family. I just want to prevent any more senseless deaths.”

  Armed men guided them along the main drag past boarded up store fronts and abandoned cars. They turned past a Mormon temple and that’s when he saw it. Kids running around a playground. Masks covered half their faces but they swung on swings, climbed monkey bars, and shot baskets like the world hadn’t ended.

  “We’re safe here.” The man gestured out the window. “No need to go all the way to Colorado.”

  An older couple guided them into the school parking lot then toward a handicapped spot near the double glass doors. Adults and teens jogged for the entrance. They really were coming to hear what the doc had to say.

  Mavis shrugged. “If you still feel that way after I’ve said my piece, then I give you my word, we’ll leave you to die in peace.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Mavis unzipped her jacket then zipped it back up. Voices swelled in the cafeteria around her. Except for the first row, full of elderly folks, everyone stood, filling the rectangular hall and spilling three deep out the door. Good Lord. The entire surrounding vicinities of Pine a
nd Strawberry must be here. Twittering, chatting, nervously glancing at David and Sally.

  A man in his fifties smoothed his salt and pepper comb-over and walked toward her. The minuscule stage creaked under his dress shoes. “As you’ve requested, Doctor Spanner, we’ve assembled everyone except the small children to hear your address.”

  Mavis released her zipper and forced her hands to her sides. “Thank you. I appreciate your cooperation, Brother Bob.”

  She addressed him by the name he’d been introduced to her in a show of respect but didn’t ask him to call her by her given name. Her title and education were her means of authority, her credentials for what she was about to tell them. Proof would come in three days, if her people kept the power plant running that long.

  Bob’s pale blue eyes drifted to David and Sally then lingered on their weapons. “I hope your words were of peace not a warning of violence to come.”

  From the corner of her eye, she checked her personal bodyguards. David’s rifle pointed to the ground and his fingers wrapped the clip. Sally’s pistol remained holstered although her hand rested on its grip. The ‘them versus us’ mentality was settling in. The military would have to be phased out then repackaged.

  “You have nothing to fear from me or our military.” She stressed the commonality. They had to be united.

  He grunted, then checked his watch. “I understand there are four of your trucks packed with armed soldiers standing by.”

  Mavis unzipped her jacket and flashed her Kevlar vest. Its weight rubbed her shoulders and cut across her nape. In the Humvee it had been comforting, now it hung from her like a millstone. “I nearly faced mutiny leaving them to talk to you. But the trucks were left to take anyone who wants to leave.”

  “And if no one does?” Brother Bob rubbed at the damp spots on his navy blazer. “Will we be rounded up like cattle and forced on board?”

  So the threat of the grenade launchers had swayed them into listening to her. Ah, well. If they feared those, wait until she told them about the real ticking time bomb. “If anyone wishes to stay after my speech, we will continue on our way without you.”