Coldfall

by Dirk Patton

  Carter unconsciously placed his hand on the center drawer of his desk, which held a draft version of the new Constitution he was describing.

  “We can’t do that!” Wise cried, finally finding his voice. “What’s happening now is nothing compared to the shit storm if we try to suspend the Constitution.”

  “We don’t try, Mr. Wise. We do! Like all great men the world has known, sometimes it is necessary to get one’s hands dirty in order to achieve greatness. Now is one of those times!”

  Timmons resisted rolling his eyes at the speech he’d heard far too many times. Not that he didn’t agree, but Carter was frequently too dramatic for his liking. Refilling his whiskey glass, he leaned back and watched Wise closely.

  “You’re talking about… I don’t even know how to describe it! Congress and the Supreme Court will stop this. Sure, with the violence that’s happening, martial law is justified. But going beyond that…”

  “Mr. Wise, those fools in Congress couldn’t find an aircraft carrier in a bathtub. They’re idiots and they’re weak. And the Supreme Court? What the hell are they going to do when tanks are rolling down the streets? Issue an injunction?”

  Carter stopped to laugh as Wise stared at him.

  “Here is what the president will do, Mr. Wise,” he continued. “In addition to the ordering of martial law, she shall designate any American who is taking up arms against the federal government as a terrorist. Then, she shall deploy the military within our borders to put down any resistance and restore order.

  “I fully expect that between the number of men and women in uniform who will refuse the order and the additional rebels the president’s announcement will create, things will rapidly disintegrate. By this time tomorrow, if all goes as predicted, we will see open hostilities in every state that will quickly escalate as national guard troops who didn’t report when called up begin to join the rebellion.”

  “But what’s the point?” Wise asked. “If we push this until there is a fully involved war, how do we come back from that? The first one lasted four years and three quarters of a million were killed. We could lose that many in a few weeks with modern weapons. What’s left then? The economy will be in shambles. The country shattered and in disarray.”

  “It won’t get that far, Mr. Wise,” Carter said, smiling again.

  “How the hell not?” Wise asked.

  “There are plans in place to restore order before it goes too far.”

  “Too far? How far is too far?”

  “As far as it needs to go to justify our actions to the public,” Carter said, shrugging. “Once everything falls in place, it will no longer matter, but we have to maintain a façade of doing what’s best for the country.”

  “This is crazy! No, this is beyond crazy. It’s one thing to push a few buttons and sacrifice a few lives for the greater good. Getting rid of guns is worth the price we’ve paid and are still paying. But this? We can’t go along with this!”

  Wise got to his feet, looking hard at Carter before glancing at Timmons and turning for the door.

  “Mr. Wise, neither you nor the president have a choice. Unless you’d like me to release the recordings and documents of the both of you committing multiple felonies to first get her elected and now to stir the pot so she can subvert the Constitution by suspending part of it unilaterally. The evidence is truly compelling and even a first year law student would be able to secure a conviction. Especially in the environment the administration has conspired to create. I would expect justice to be swift and brutal if it comes to that.”

  Wise turned and stared at Carter.

  “You’d implicate yourself, or at the very least I’d testify against you!”

  “I’m nowhere on the recordings, Mr. Wise. Neither is there any other evidence against me. And you can forget the recording of this conversation you were attempting to make with your phone. This office is blanketed with a highly specialized system that disables all audio and video recording devices.

  “So, the choice is yours, Mr. Wise. Either the administration does as I say, or the rabble will be dragging all of you out of the White House once they learn what you’ve done. For this, there will be no pardons from the incoming president. No leniency. This is called murder. Subversion. And a dozen other things. Even if you weren’t sentenced to death, none of you would ever see the outside of a prison again. Ready to roll those dice, Mr. Wise?”

  Chapter 34

  The giant man, even larger than my dad had been, stood looking down at the two bodies he’d carried inside. Blood was dripping off his pants leg onto the rough floor, but he didn’t seem to care. The dead men he’d brought in looked like they’d been run through a meat grinder. I’d seen plenty of animal carcasses, but this was different.

  Tanya and I stayed silent and still for nearly a minute after he brought the second one in, then she quietly added some wood to the fire that had begun to burn low. Standing, I took a few steps across the room for a closer look at the corpses.

  “What happened to them?” I asked softly.

  “Fuckin’ Claymore,” the man said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Anti-personnel mine. Seven hundred steel ball bearings packed in front of a bunch of C-4.”

  He spoke without looking at me.

  “I’m sorry about your men,” I finally said.

  He nodded without saying anything, then turned and looked me up and down.

  “Better be worth it,” he rumbled, staring hard at me.

  “What does that mean?” Tanya asked challengingly.

  We both turned to find her standing in front of the fire, arms crossed as she stared at the man.

  “Means two good men gave their lives to save your skinny little ass, missy,” he said. “Means you’d better have been worth savin’.”

  “Us worth saving, or the evidence you want worth saving us to get?” I asked, drawing a glare from him.

  “Look, kid. We’re here cause the world’s goin’ to shit. Accordin’ to your mom, you two got something that can set it right again. So, yeah, the evidence is why we’re here. Why they died.” He pointed at the two corpses without taking his eyes off me. “So, where’d you hide it?”

  “How do we know we can trust you?” Tanya asked.

  “Because I didn’t start putting bullets in you to get him to tell me where it is,” the man said. “So, what about it Princess?”

  “You’re an asshole!” Tanya said, staring daggers at him.

  “I’m Joe,” I said, deciding it was time to cool things off and extending my hand.

  He slowly swiveled his head to look at me, then down at my hand. After several seconds, he gripped it and gave it a single shake, just like Dad used to do.

  “BK,” he said.

  “Who sent you, BK?”

  “All I know is your mom called General Mathis. Word made it to my unit and here we are.”

  “Your unit? Are you guys Marines?”

  BK snorted and shook his head.

  “We’re nothing now, but we were never Marines. Don’t much matter, though. We all want the same thing.”

  “What’s that?” Tanya asked. “What do you want?”

  “Stop the fucks that are trying to take over the country,” he said.

  “Take over the country?” I asked, confused. “What are you talking about?”

  “Long story,” he said. “But both of your dads were just pawns. Killed for no reason other than it helped their narrative.”

  “Their? Who are you talking about?” I asked.

  “Beats the hell outta me. I’m just a soldier. You’d have to ask someone that knows a whole lot more’n I do.”

  We all turned when the door suddenly sprang open, but BK didn’t seem concerned. A blonde that was about the hottest woman I’d ever seen in person stepped up to the threshold and came in, looking over at the two bodies and stopping. I recognized the man following her as the one who’d caught us in the woods. He stood there, staring at us with flat,
lifeless eyes.

  “Trippy told me,” the blonde said as she moved to stand next to BK.

  After a moment, she turned away and I could see tears running down her face. She slowly reached out and placed her hand lightly on his arm.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

  He nodded, then tilted his head toward me and Tanya.

  “That’s Joe. His dad was one of ‘em killed when all this started.” He looked directly at me. “This is Ashley. She’s a reporter. We brought her to make sure the truth gets out. So, show us what you got.”

  “Boss,” the man with the flat eyes said. “Still got an X-ray fuckin’ ‘round out there and if’n you hadn’t noticed, there’s a bullet hole in your leg.”

  BK looked down as if he’d forgotten he was injured. With a sigh, he looked back up.

  “First things first,” he said. “Got any ideas what to do with the bodies outside so we don’t wind up with every predator in Idaho on our doorstep?”

  “Ash,” flat eyes said, pointing at the fireplace. “Rub ash on ‘em. Don’t block all the scent, but it’ll knock it down some. Best we can do.”

  “Okay,” BK said. “Get busy. I’d better look at this leg.”

  Lowering himself to the floor, BK leaned back against the wall and undid his pants before carefully slipping them down to his knees. There was a freely bleeding hole in the meat of his thigh, near the middle. Ashley knelt and gently raised his leg to peer at the back.

  “No exit wound,” she said, sitting up and looking at him.

  “That ain’t good,” flat eyes said.

  He was scraping piles of ash out of the firebox with a long-bladed knife, stopping and looking over his shoulder at BK.

  “No shit, Trippy,” BK said.

  “What do we do?” Ashley asked.

  “Let me see,” Tanya said, moving close and kneeling next to BK.

  “Know what the hell you’re doin’?” he asked.

  “Grew up on a ranch,” she said. “Learned some from my mom. She was always having to patch someone up. And I took some emergency medicine classes. So, unless you brought a medic along, you’d better trust me.”

  “Doc there was the medic,” BK said, pointing.

  The room went perfectly silent, the way it does when someone really steps in it. Tanya looked up at BK’s face, then turned her head to look at the dead man. She didn’t move or say anything for what felt like a long time.

  “I’m sorry,” she eventually said, looking back down at BK’s wound.

  She probed gently with her fingertips, eliciting a hiss of pain from him before looking up.

  “Okay, the bullet’s definitely in there. I can feel it and it’s damn close to your femur. Must hurt like hell.”

  “Ain’t a kiss in the spring rain, that’s for sure,” BK said.

  “Well, never mind how it feels. I don’t think you should try to climb down out of these mountains with it in there. Lots of nerves and blood vessels close to the bone and if it’s grinding around with every step you take it could cause some big problems.”

  BK looked at her face for a beat, then up at me.

  “Hey, Joe. Do me a favor. See that dark green pack at the small of Doc’s back? Grab it, would ya?”

  I looked at the dead man, hesitated a second then circled around and bent over the body. It took some effort to get it to release from whatever kind of harness he was wearing and I was covered in blood to my forearms by the time it came free. Carrying it to BK, he just nodded toward Tanya when I held it out.

  “Med kit,” he said to her. “Take the damn bullet out.”

  She stared at him a second in shock before blurting, “Are you crazy? That’s for a doctor, not me!”

  “Well, you’re all I’ve got, so get busy.”

  Tanya looked at him in shock, then down at his leg before shaking her head and holding her hands out.

  “No way,” she said. “I do one thing wrong and you could bleed out. Or have permanent nerve damage. And that’s just what I know to worry about. God knows what else could go wrong. What about her?”

  Tanya pointed at Ashley who recoiled in horror at the idea.

  “At least you’ve had a class,” she said. “I haven’t even had that much. Not me!”

  “Jesus,” BK grumbled, grabbing the bag out of my hand and dropping it onto the floor. “Want something done right…”

  As he groused, he opened the kit and began removing things he would need. Tanya watched for a few seconds then reached out and took a small bottle of antiseptic from his hand.

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ll do it. But if I fuck up…”

  Quickly, Tanya poured some of the antiseptic over her hands, then onto BK’s leg. Muscles rippled and he hissed again when it hit the open wound. Holding up a syringe and small vial of clear liquid, she stopped and looked around.

  “I need more light,” she said.

  “In my pack,” BK said, leaning forward.

  Ashley stepped around Tanya and dug for a moment, coming up with a small flashlight. When she clicked it on, BK’s leg was brightly lit. Not wanting to watch, I started to head out the door to wash my hands in the stream and help Trippy spread ash on the bodies.

  “Hey, Joe!” BK called, pain making his voice tight. “Tell me ‘bout that evidence while your girlfriend’s torturing me.”

  Tanya ignored him, focusing on numbing the wound as best she could before digging around inside his leg.

  “They were murdered,” I said without emotion. “We’ve got pics. Tanya’s dad had set up some trail cameras to catch a thief and they wound up photographing what happened. Our dads weren’t even armed. Either of them. Feds just pulled up, got out and gunned them down in cold blood.”

  “You’ve got photos of that?” Ashley asked in disbelief.

  I nodded.

  “Can I see them?”

  I was quiet, waiting for Tanya to answer. After a beat, she stopped what she was doing but didn’t look up.

  “Cell phone in my back pocket. Pics are on the memory card that’s plugged in. Aren’t any copies, so be careful.”

  Ashley started to bend and reach for the phone, but stopped when the light shifted away from BK. Standing again, she focused it back on target.

  “I’ll look at them in a little while,” she said.

  Tanya nodded and went back to work. Trippy came in, giving her work a glance before addressing BK.

  “Best I can do with them bodies, but should be good.”

  BK, sweat beading on his face, nodded.

  “We need the one that got away,” he said.

  Trippy nodded and turned to leave.

  “Alive, Trippy. If you can.”

  “No promises,” Trippy said, looking over his shoulder at the corpses of his teammates.

  Chapter 35

  “Oh, my God,” Ashley breathed.

  She was staring at Tanya’s phone screen, sitting on the floor next to BK. Tanya had managed to remove the bullet without killing him, but he was a little pale and looked exhausted from the pain. She’d closed him up with a suture kit when finished. It wasn’t a pretty job, but had mostly stemmed the flow of blood.

  Ashley made sure she administered a dose of antibiotics and had seemed distressed when there wasn’t any tetanus vaccine in the kit. BK told her to relax, explaining he’d received a booster the previous year.

  She was holding the phone so they could both see the images, her face reflecting horror at what the trail camera had captured. BK appeared impassive, but that didn’t surprise me. If my dad were sitting here, I’d be very surprised if he didn’t maintain the same detached demeanor.

  “Fuckin’ execution,” BK said quietly then looked up at where Tanya and I were sitting with our shoulders touching. “You look at all these?”

  I shook my head.

  “Saw the ones with our dads. Didn’t feel like going through the whole thing.”

  He hesitated for a second as if trying to come to a decision.

&n
bsp; “Wanna know the story they show?”

  I started to answer, then looked at Tanya. She met my eyes and nodded.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Got four big SUVs pull up. Looks like four BLM agents in the lead. They get out and start walking toward a group of people. Ranchers, I’m guessin’. They’re talkin’. Ain’t nobody gettin’ agitated. No weapons to be seen. Guy gets out of one of the other vehicles and calls the agents back. Soon as they’re clear, six more guys step out and open up on the people while the first guy holds the agents back at gunpoint.

  “When the ranchers are all down, they herd the agents forward and shoot them, too. Then there’s…”

  “What?” I asked when he stopped and looked away.

  He shook his head.

  “What, goddamn it?” I shouted. “Tell me!”

  BK met my eyes and slowly sighed.

  “Guy that’s the leader. Everyone’s down. He checks each body. Found a couple that were still alive. Shot ‘em in the head.”

  I stared at him, unable to speak. Imagined the terror of lying there helpless as some asshole stood over you and fired directly into your head.

  “My dad?” I finally was able to ask in a whisper.

  “Looks like,” BK said, staring at his lap.

  It was soft at first, then Tanya began shaking from great, racking sobs. Turning, I wrapped her in my arms and held her as she cried, burying my face in her hair as tears flowed freely from my eyes. We stayed that way for a long time. Clinging to each other in our pain and loss.

  Slowly, the image of my dad lying in the dirt with a blood-stained shirt sharpened in my mind. A dark figure stood over him, looking down as he aimed a pistol at my dad’s head. Then he pulled the trigger. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew he had smiled at the moment of my father’s death. Releasing Tanya, I stood and went to Ashley and BK.

  “Show me,” I said, voice strong. I was cried out.

  “What?” Ashley asked.

  “The man that shot my father in the head.”

  She hesitated, looking to BK for help. He nodded without saying anything. Silently, she flipped through the images until she found the right one, then held the phone out. Taking it, I stared at the pic which was so similar to what my mind had conjured up that it was eerie. But now I had a face to assign to my dad’s killer. It was distant and slightly blurry, but I had no doubt I’d recognize the man instantly.