Standing at the Edge

by William Alan Webb

  Ground-in grime covered Norbert Cranston’s face and clothes. In addition to his hands being bound behind him, a burly guard stood on either side, each one holding an arm.

  “What do you want from me?” Cranston said. “Why not just kill me and get it over with?”

  “Why would I have you killed?”

  “I hear things. Even living in the forest, I hear things. You’re General Anguff…”

  “Angriff.”

  “Your people kicked the shit out of the Chinese last year after you jumped us from behind. They say you dragged General Patton out of the courthouse kicking and screaming, and then strung him up from a tree. If you did that to him, why not me, too?”

  “That’s a good question. Maybe I will. So far, I don’t like you very much. But that’s not why I’m talking to you. I’m trying to figure out whether you can be salvaged.”

  Cranston squinted and scowled, but Angriff noted the brief widening of his eyes and twitch at the corner of his mouth. He might as well have held up a flag reading throw me a lifeline.

  “What does that mean?”

  “You kept your men alive through a harsh winter. That’s quite an accomplishment. And you apparently have some military command skills. I need leaders like that. On the other hand, you worked for a vile human being who sold other human beings into slavery. That’s an unforgiveable sin in my book, so help me understand why I should trust your motives if I put you to work.”

  Cranston rolled his shoulders. “It’s hard to think with my hands tied.”

  “Tough.”

  The prisoner lowered his head and kicked at a pebble. “Why is slavery wrong?”

  “If that’s a serious question, there’s no point in continuing this discussion.”

  “Why? I don’t know who you are or where you came from. You just showed up with an army behind you and with weapons we could only dream of having. You must have been a kid when The Collapse happened, just like me, but whatever you were taught wasn’t what I learned. General Patton—”

  “That’s not his name!”

  “What?” Cranston’s face showed genuine confusion.

  “His name is Lester Earl Hull, and we didn’t kill him. He’s in the brig… jail, locked up. He was a lieutenant in the old U.S. Army during The Collapse and saw an opportunity to seize power.”

  “Is that true?”

  “I’ll excuse the inference that I’m a liar.”

  “You’re a lot like him.”

  “I’m nothing like him!”

  “I meant that as a compliment. I don’t remember much about the old USA; I came of age in the chaos afterward. All kinds of people fought over this area. Food supplies dried up fast when Phoenix got quarantined…”

  “What do you know about that?”

  “Nothing concrete, but I’ve heard all sorts of stories. Anyway, Patton came in… excuse me, what did you say his name was?”

  “Hull, Lester Earl Hull. We thought you were in the pre-Collapse army with him.”

  “Not me. I’m only in my late fifties. To cut this short, Patton came in and restored order. People had food to eat and a place to sleep. The price for that was strict obedience and slavery for those who resisted. That’s the only reality I grew up with. If there’s a different way, I’m willing to learn.”

  Angriff crossed his arms and inspected the man like he would a questionable piece of meat. “This won’t be a popular decision with the folks here in Prescott, but I’m going to give you one shot at rejoining the human race. One, got that? You’ll be under the eye of Colonel Khin Saw, my officer in charge of personnel. If that man tells you to eat nails, you ask him how many. Is that clear?”

  Cranston nodded.

  “Get him out of here.”

  As Angriff stood and watched them leave, a tremor shook the ground. It lasted about five seconds and did no damage, but there was something disquieting about even a minor earthquake. If you can’t count on the ground beneath your feet being solid, what can you count on?

  “Does that happen often around here?” he called out to Cranston.

  “Didn’t used to, but in the last couple of years, it’s happened all the time.”

  #

  Operation Overtime

  1632 hours, April 10

  Angriff walked slowly down the ramp from the Crystal Palace, headed for his quarters. Dust covered his ACUs and particles fell off with every step. Sergeant Schiller would be upset in the morning, but right then he was too tired to care.

  Just as he stepped off the ramp and turned left, Norm Fleming walked into the Clamshell, wearing even more dirt than he did. He smiled and patted Angriff on the shoulder, although he did notice the bandage on his ear.

  “I’m proud of you, Nick.”

  “My life is now complete.”

  “I heard about what you did with that compliance guy today. I know how much you hated those kinds of people before The Collapse. The old Nick might have shot him, but you turned it around and put him to use. That’s a Nick I haven’t seen before.”

  “If you’re thinking about kissing me, don’t. How was the horseback ride?”

  “Exhausting for me, but I’m declaring them ready for active duty. They did great. So did the airborne.”

  “I’m glad. Now, unless you’re gonna bring me a cookie and tuck me in, I’m going to bed.”

  #

  Chapter 7

  Three things the wise man does not do. He does not plow the sky. He does not paint pictures on the water. And he does not argue with a woman.

  Charlie Chan

  Northwest of Creech Air Force Base, NV

  1633 hours, April 10

  Nado’s horse crested the hill at a gallop and she gave him his head. They’d ridden the trail hundreds of times, but never before with death at their backs. She at once feared the two pursuing riders would start shooting and knew they wouldn’t. It wasn’t something she had that they wanted; it was her. Alive. Women riding alone were scarce in the desert.

  A quick glance showed them forty feet back.

  Too far.

  With the slightest pressure on the reins, she slowed Ruffian, her four-year-old Arabian stallion, from a mouth-frothing full-out gallop to an imperceptibly slower gait. Beneath her thighs, she felt the sweat in his coat and the rhythmic rise and fall of his breathing. From years of training together, Nado knew he still had plenty left to give.

  They pounded down the slope in unison, horse and rider so perfectly coordinated neither had to think about what the other was doing. Neither of the riders behind rode with the same confidence or skill. If they had, she wouldn’t have had to slow down.

  On the desert floor, her dust cloud boiled into their faces, as she intended. She slowed a little more so they didn’t lose her. While jumping the narrow gulley she knew was there, she chanced a glance to see how far back they were.

  Twenty feet. Perfect.

  As expected, both men veered to either side, avoiding the worst of the dust. The rider on her right withdrew a long pole, presumably to knock her from the saddle. The other took a slightly wider circuit to her left. Ahead, she spotted the two stones she knew would be there. Only two feet apart, with a line of smaller stones marking a narrow trail until it ended in two more large rocks. You had to know it was there to see it. Nado did; she’d placed the rocks there herself.

  She and Ruffian had ridden that path hundreds of times, if not thousands. The horse knew by practice exactly where to plant his footfalls and he didn’t falter. As he thundered down the narrow path, Nado prayed her pursuers followed her.

  She didn’t see what happened; all she knew, when she looked back, was they had disappeared. The trap had worked.

  Bringing Ruffian around and patting his shoulder, she stopped at the edge of a pit on one side of the narrow trail, a matching pit on the far side. Nado dismounted and peered into the darkness below. One rider lay at the bottom of each pit. The one holding the long shaft had flown straight into the pit’s side, decapitating him
and maiming his mount. The horse shrieked in pain from two broken legs. She drew the .45 from her holster and took careful aim at the stricken animal twenty feet below. Mercifully, the first shot was enough.

  The rider in the other pit had survived with nothing more than a broken arm, and the horse didn’t seem injured. The man screamed curses at her, but she walked away from the edge and out of his sight. In the distance came two more riders, but these she knew.

  When they reined up in a swirl of dust and gravel, she had already remounted Ruffian.

  “You mean that thing you dug actually worked?” the smaller of the two said. Both wore dusty green uniforms.

  “Never any doubt, Roddy. There’s a live one and his horse in that pit over there. Be careful; he might be armed. The other one’s dead, his horse too.”

  “Horse?” Roddy smiled and shared a glance with the other man.

  Nado looked down and shook her head, her face slack with sadness. No matter how hungry she got, she couldn’t eat horse. “If you’re gonna eat it, then you’d better hurry before it bloats in this heat.”

  “Hey, Nado, I’m sorry, but you know how it is.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I know. Meat’s meat.”

  “C’mon, now, don’t be like that.”

  “It’s not your fault. But if asshole number two over there gives you any shit, eat him instead.”

  Roddy grimaced. “I know you’re kidding, but… You’ve been gone a long time, Nado. We was worried.”

  “Thanks, Roddy, you’re sweet. I’ve gotta go see Kando.”

  She turned Ruffian in one fluid motion. After a gentle nudge, the horse leaped into a canter. Before long she was on the paved road leading into the base, passing through the rusted signs with Warning: U.S. Air Force Installation in faded red letters across the top.

  #

  General Jamal Kando felt groggy as someone shook him out of his nap. The cool air from the standing electric fan was one of the only perks of being the commander. Powered by the sole functioning solar generator, it allowed him to sleep through the burning hot afternoons of the Nevada desert. Waking him for anything less than an emergency was dangerous and his staff knew it. So when full consciousness returned, he knew without asking it was important.

  As he sat up, his skin peeled away from the vinyl couch with a ripping sound. Underneath him, sweat covered the fabric. “Well?”

  Corporal Sanchez knelt so the general wouldn’t have to look up at him. “Tornado says she needs to talk to you right now.”

  “Nado?” The deep lines in Kando’s face smoothed as he smiled. “Give me a minute before you bring her in.”

  He moved into the squeaky swivel chair behind his desk, but didn’t bother putting a uniform shirt over his white cotton undershirt. Military decorum on the base had gone slack in the long, lonely years since The Collapse.

  Lucia Tornado Alvarez swept into his office as she always did, like a dust devil. Having lived her entire life on the base, Nado didn’t give a damn about military protocols. Kando could only take her for short periods. Her restless energy exhausted him, but he loved her visits anyway. She reminded him of better times.

  “This is a nice surprise,” he said. A trickle of sweat on his cheek dried in the blowing air of the fan. “I haven’t seen you for a while.”

  “A scraper’s gotta scrape,” she said. “I was gonna go up into Idaho, but first I headed for Tahoe to check out the snow pack, see what the water tables would be like this year. I thought maybe I’d run into Mom, find out what going’s on up there.”

  “And?”

  “The pack in the Sierra Nevadas is deep, so it looks like rain could be above normal this year. The rivers should be full. The locals said game is plentiful but the Chinese are sniffing around again to the west. I spent a couple of days with Steve Hunter up at Incline. He showed me around some. But that’s not why I’m here.”

  “Don’t keep me in suspense.”

  “First thing, I got chased all the way back by a couple guys who knew how to ride. They picked up my trail about ten miles out and followed me all the way into the north valley.”

  “Did we get them?”

  “I led them into one of my traps, the one you wouldn’t help me dig. Remember those? One of the men broke his neck, but Roddy has the other one.”

  “Who were they?”

  She shook her head, tossing the thick black locks around like curls of smoke rising in the night. “I’m guessing they’re from that band of desert raiders we’ve heard about the last couple of months, but I’ll bet the guy you’ve got is already talking. They wore red bandanas, whatever that means. Anyway, forget about them; they’re not the story here. When I was coming out of the mountains, I ran into Jingle Bob, and we shared the latest news. He was headed north but told me about a battlefield outside of Phoenix. Did you know there was a battle down there last year?”

  Kando’s posture changed from relaxed to rigid. He sat straight, folded his hands, and thrust his head forward. “What kind of battle?”

  “A big one. Bob hadn’t seen the whole thing yet, but he’d seen some of it. He got the rest from a Goshute, who got it from an Apache, who supposedly watched the whole thing.”

  “So this is second, third, and fourth hand?”

  “Doesn’t make it not true. The story the Goshute gave him was that a unit of Marines faced off against an army from the Caliphate, and the Marines won.”

  “By Marines, you mean Patton’s troops down in Prescott?”

  “No, I mean Marine Marines.”

  “United States Marines?”

  “That’s the story. But there’s more. The Apache said there was another battle around Prescott, a much bigger battle with tanks and helicopters, this time against the Chinese. That’s the one Bob got to see in person. He said it was true.”

  “The Chinese? So they finally moved on the Republic of Arizona? That’s bad for us. Now they’re south and west of us.”

  “I don’t know, maybe. But I got the impression this was the real U.S. military.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “If you say so. But Bob heard the Americans won and won big. Beat the shit out of the Chinese.”

  Kando rose and stepped over to the window. The distant mountains cast shadows on the far end of the runway as the late afternoon sun dropped to the horizon. He was silent for several minutes. “If this is somehow real, it changes everything, but I can’t waste resources chasing maybes and could-bes. How willing are you to do recon that far south? If the Caliphate’s moving north from Tucson, it’s more dangerous than ever. But if we have new-found allies…”

  “Willing?” Nado said with a smirk. “Willing? You talk like you could stop me. Give me supplies and ammo, and I’ll find out exactly what’s what down there.”

  He nodded once. “Done. First we interrogate this prisoner, but if everything checks out, I’ll give you whatever I can spare. One condition, though. You’re back within two weeks.”

  “It’ll take that long to ride down there and back. A month.”

  “Three weeks.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Hey, Nado?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Be careful, okay? Creech needs you. I need you. Even Fifty-One needs you.”

  “Fifty-One can kiss my ass.”

  #

  SECTION TWO

  Threats

  Chapter 8

  The storm always comes.

  Matt Morris, author of The Unemployed Millionaire

  Plumas National Forest, CA

  1702 hours, April 10

  The Douglas firs and Ponderosa pines thinned as the slope steepened into a ravine, with a small river at the bottom. Hidden in the tree line, Junker Jane passed the binoculars to Jingle Bob. He tracked the knot of men half-walking and half-sliding down the rocky ground toward the water.

  Once they were out of earshot, Jane turned to him with raised eyebrows and crossed arms. “Well?”

  “What can I
say? You were right; they’re Chinese.”

  Jingle Bob thought Jane had to be younger than she looked. Her face showed the effects of a lifetime lived outdoors. Light scars marked the sun-bronzed skin here and there. Deep wrinkles sprayed the corners of her brown eyes. Sun-bleached blond streaks lightened her dark brown hair, a trait from her Spanish ancestors.

  “But what are the Chinese doing this far north and east?” she said. “This isn’t friendly territory for them or us.”

  “You tell me; this is your hunting ground, not mine. What’s around here they’d want?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “There’s plenty of game, mostly deer but also geese, ducks, and all sorts of birds… but they don’t need to move into the high mountains to hunt game. There are plenty of predators up here, too, everything from bears and bobcats to mountain lions, and they’ll munch on a human if they get the chance. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Could be a rogue outfit.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Or…” Jingle Bob scratched under his chin and cast his eyes skyward, thinking. “How far are we from that old army base?”

  “Which one?”

  “The one with the tanks.”

  “Sierra Army Depot?”

  “Is that the one with the tanks?”

  “Yeah. It’s about fifty miles from here.”

  “I’ll bet that’s it. They’re scouting ways to get there.”

  “So why wander around the mountains? Why don’t they just follow the old highways?”

  “Bridges, I guess. A lot of them have crashed.”

  “I—”

  Gunshots echoed through the ravine, AK-47s set to full automatic mixed with single reports from large-caliber rifles. Bob and Jane exchanged glances and hit the forest floor, sighting their matching Henry .45/70 lever-action rifles down the slope. In minutes three of the eight Chinese who had descended struggled back up the way they’d come, pausing to fire across the ravine to the far side.

  Twenty yards from the tree line where they lay, one Chinese took a round through the back of the head and collapsed. Another threw up his hands in surrender before a dozen rounds ripped him apart. The last charged in blind panic, heading right for their hiding place. He was young, much younger than most Chinese soldiers they’d heard about. Both of them could see the terror in his face as bullets kicked up dirt around him. Whoever was shooting at him, their fire was getting close to the two scrapers, so at a range of ten feet they both fired.