by Riley Flynn
Jax pointed to Skolnik. “The major worked with her for months. He was the one who found her after she didn’t show up to High Sierra for a couple of days.”
“She didn’t deserve that,” Skolnik said, his eyes on the table. “Nobody deserves that. And I didn’t deserve to walk in and find them like that.”
“Wait,” said Burnett. “I heard it was a murder-suicide. What was a cop supposed to do about it?”
“This time it was a murder-suicide,” said Jax. “Next time, it could be a mass shooting. We’ve got people living through the worst winter in a century, in the aftermath of the end of the world, and they’ve all got access to weapons. I want people in place before we need them, not after.”
In his peripheral vision, he saw Hutch lean back in his chair and tent his fingers under his chin. He would no doubt have something to say about it after the meeting.
Todd scratched at his thick beard. “I see your point. You’re saying that the army should be seen as peacekeepers and helpers, not authority figures. Martial law that doesn’t look like martial law.”
Jax did an internal double take: that was exactly what he’d been thinking, but he was surprised Todd had picked up on it so quickly. He wondered for the umpteenth time how much he didn’t know about the man and his past.
“Basically, yes,” he said. “The police would be the bad guys, the army would continue to be the good guys. Say there’s a brawl at Fast Lanez; it’s the cops that shut them down, not the army.”
“Hey,” said Raylene. “Why’d you automatically go to the bowling alley with that one? Carol lived in New Haven.”
“It doesn’t matter!” Skolnik snapped. “Every life is precious now, whether you live downtown or in the suburbs! Admit it, you’ve all seen people in the city doing things that you thought weren’t right, but you didn’t say anything about it because what are you supposed to do? Go up to a soldier and say ‘I think that guy over there is going to hurt somebody, you should do something about it’?”
The table was silent as they considered Skolnik’s words; Hutch leaned forward, elbows on knees, in his peanut gallery of one. Jax thought it was ironic that Skolnik talked about taking a situation to a soldier when, technically, he was a soldier himself.
“He’s right,” said Lisa. “We need people in authority that we can go to for help, and who can take control if we need them to. Our military folks have enough on their plates just trying to keep the streets clear so that we can get around, and the power on so that we don’t all freeze to death.”
Travis nodded beside her. “Not to mention everything they’re doing after what happened in the mountains.”
Todd glared at him and tilted his head discreetly in Hutch’s direction. The look on Travis’s face said he got the message: not in front of the civilians. Jax glanced over at Hutch; if he’d picked up on the exchange, it didn’t show in his expression.
“Maggie and Brian are okay with this?” Raylene asked.
“More than okay,” said Price. “I’m dying for some action.”
As if in response to his request, a thunderous boom suddenly echoed through the hotel.
6
Jax was on his feet and moving in the direction of the sound an instant later. He instinctively reached for his sidearm and realized he’d left it in the Hummer.
He bolted down the hallway toward the entrance and scanned beyond the glass doors to assess the situation, his mind swirling with images of the aftermath of the explosion in the mountains that had killed twenty-three of his men.
As he got closer, he saw that the sound hadn’t been an explosion. The front end of a truck was visible behind the far left pillar of the entrance. At least, he could see what was left of the front end of the truck behind what was left of the pillar.
He slammed the door open and jogged into the cold as a man dropped from the driver’s side of the truck into the snow. A moment later, the driver staggered to his feet, and Jax felt his stomach drop as he recognized him. Even with the beard, and with blood streaming down from a wound at his hairline, the face of Brad Farries was unmistakeable.
“Sargeant!” Jax barked. “What the fuck happened?”
The sergeant—on official leave as of five weeks earlier—straightened up and offered an exaggerated salute.
“Sir, yessir!” he shouted. “Sgt. Farries, reporting for duty, sir!”
The slur in his voice confirmed what Jax had feared: Farries was drunk and had just driven a big Dodge 4x4 diesel into the front of the hotel. Judging by the damage to the front end and the chunks of stone on the ground around it, he’d been going a good clip and hadn’t touched the brakes.
Jax grabbed the man by the collar of his jacket and shook him like a dog would a rat. “What is the matter with you, soldier?” he bellowed. “You could have killed yourself! Or someone else!”
Farries swayed for a moment before his eyes brightened at something happening behind Jax.
“There’s m’girl!” Farries said with a grin. He wiped the blood from his brow with the sleeve of his coat. “Hey, baby!”
Jax turned to see the rest of the people at the meeting walking through the entrance, under the second-floor balcony that was held up by the three remaining stone pillars. Lisa Blume looked horrified as she walked toward him and Farries.
“Oh my God, Brad,” she whispered. “Are you all right? What have you done?”
“Just came to see yer byoodaful face. Guess I was goin’ too fast. Wanted to get here quick.”
He leaned into her but she stopped him with a hand to his chest. Her heavy breath filled the air around them with white vapor.
“Brad… Jesus, Brad, your head! You’re bleeding!”
Farries scoffed. “Pff. This is nothin.’ I got two purple hearts, babe. Take a lot more’n this to punch my ticket.”
Jax saw the others wisely observing from a distance. He didn’t want any of them taking a role in this.
“Sergeant,” he said, trying to keep the fury out of his voice. “You’re out of control. We need to get you someplace where you can sober up, then we’ll talk about this.”
Farries rounded on him. A grin spread under the sergeant’s blood-streaked beard. “Sorry, Dad, I got a date. We’ll have a heart-to-heart later.” He leaned in close and Jax almost recoiled from the smell of whiskey on his breath. “Hey, can I borrow the car?”
Jax’s right hand clenched into a fist an instant before he felt another hand grab it. He spun to see Todd standing beside him, clear concern on his face.
“We just voted,” he said. “Stubbs and Price are the new sheriffs. Let them handle this.”
The pair stepped forward and each took one of Farries’ arms.
“It’s okay, Captain,” Maggie said. “We’ve got this.”
Jax drew in a shaky breath as the thought of what he’d been about to do hit home. If the others hadn’t been there, he might have hurt Farries—badly. He realized with sudden, horrible clarity that it wasn’t just everyone else who was on the edge. Jax was right there with them.
“All right,” he said. “Make sure he can’t go anywhere. He’s clearly not just a danger to himself anymore.”
Farries glowered at him. “S’fine when I was just a danger to me, right? Who gives a shit about Sgt. Farries? Not Captain Jackson Fucking Booth, thas fer sure.”
Maggie and Price tried to pull him back, but Farries fought them.
“Fuck off,” he growled. “Here for a date with Lisa. Tell em, babe.”
Lisa bit her lip, her eyes wide. “Brad, you… you have to go with him. You’re getting crazy.” She swept a hand in the direction of the crash. “This was crazy.”
“I was comin’ to see you,” he slurred. “Yer my girl…”
“Just go,” Lisa whispered. Jax could see the shimmer of tears in her pale blue eyes. “I don’t want to see you anymore.”
Farries stood there for a moment, blinking. Then, snake-quick, he leaped forward toward Lisa, forcing Maggie and Price to strugg
le to keep their grip on his arm.
“That’s how it is?” Farries snapped. “You just gonna dump me, you bitch? In front of all these people?”
Jax saw panic in Lisa’s eyes and reacted instinctively: “Stand down, Sergeant! That’s an order!”
The words seemed to hit Farries like a physical blow, and he slumped suddenly. Maggie and Price managed to keep him from falling face-first into the snow.
“Nobody fuckin’ cares,” he muttered. “Fuckin’ show you…”
Jax scowled. “Get him out of here. Put him in the infirmary and tie him down until he sobers up. I’ll deal with him then.”
Price opened his mouth to speak, but Maggie beat him to it.
“We’ll take it from here, Captain. I’ll keep you apprised of the situation if anything develops.”
Jax felt cold fury rise in his chest, then took a breath and clamped down on it. You were the one whose idea it was to make them cops, he scolded himself. Let them do their jobs.
“Understood,” he said, giving Maggie a nod. “Thanks for your help. I appreciate it.”
“You can take my SUV,” Raylene said from the entrance. “The big blue Navigator there. Fob’s in it.”
“Thanks,” said Maggie. “Come on, Sarge—”
At that instant, Farries twisted savagely to his right, pulling his arm free from her grip. Price moved to react, but he was too late: Farries swung at him with a right hook that connected squarely with his jaw. Then he bolted forward, straight for Lisa, who stood a few yards away with a look of terror on her face.
Jax moved instinctively to intercept him, but Maggie was there first. She grabbed Farries from behind in a chokehold and kicked the back of his knee. He buckled to the ground, and she followed up with a piledriver fist to the back of his head. The sound it made as it connected—a dull thonk—was enough to tell Jax that he wasn’t getting up from this one.
“Great,” Price grunted as he grabbed Farries’ arm again and hoisted him from the ground. “Now we get to drag his ass around.”
Maggie lifted the sergeant’s other side and they began the trudge through the snow to Raylene’s Lincoln. They laid him out on his back in the rear seat, then climbed into the front and pulled away. The rest of them stood in silence in the entrance and watched as the car disappeared down Lake Avenue.
“Well,” Hutch said finally. “You people certainly know how to liven up a council meeting. Anyone else up for a drink?”
Jax put his hand over the top of his glass before Hutch could pour more bourbon into it.
“Are you sure?” Hutch asked. “I’m buying.”
They and Todd were in the Broadmoor’s Penrose Lounge, resplendent with dark, burnished wood and comfortable chairs. It hadn’t changed much since the collapse, and the bar was still well stocked.
“I have to be somewhere in an hour,” said Jax. “And, to be honest, I’m seriously thinking about giving up drinking after what just happened.”
“I don’t think it’s the booze,” Todd said, draining his own glass and waggling it for a refill, which Hutch obliged. “Farries has been out of it ever since we got back from the mountains. What we went through up there got to him.”
Jax felt a flash of anger. He wasn’t going to tell Wallace Todd what he suspected was going on with Farries; the man deserved at least that much dignity.
“Don’t talk about things you don’t know about, Todd. It makes you look stupid.”
Hutch leaned forward between the two men before Todd could reply. “Ding-ding. Go to your neutral corners, gentlemen.”
“Listen, asshole—” Todd began, but Hutch held up a finger.
“Don’t make me go all principal on your ass, Wallace,” he said. “The captain is right. He knows Sgt. Farries, you don’t. Chief among the things I don’t miss about our pre-collapse society is the predilection of so many to judge people and situations based on the merest snatches of information.”
The air appeared to go out of Todd’s sails. “Twitter,” he said. “Yeah, I remember.”
“It wasn’t just social media,” Hutch said, leaning back in his rounded armchair. “I saw it on campus all the time. Young people who had opinions set in stone on every subject under the sun, even though they had absolutely no experience with which to back them up. Not to mention my colleagues, who routinely dismissed any opinion that didn’t come from their own mouth and doled out lower marks to minorities, people who didn’t dress well, those who didn’t appear to be paying close enough attention during lectures. All of us believing we were right about everything, and anyone who disagreed with us was an imbecile.”
“We didn’t see a lot of that in the army,” said Jax. “You don’t second-guess orders when you’re in the desert with a dozen rifle sights trained on you.”
Hutch raised an eyebrow. “As much as I appreciate your service, Captain, I have to ask: you’ve never countermanded a superior officer?”
Jax thought about Col. Smith. He’d threatened the man’s life, questioned his orders and gone over his head, until he finally ended up leapfrogging over the colonel and answering directly to Gen. Archer. Smith had been a virtual ghost in the three months since that happened.
“All right,” he sighed. “Point taken.”
“It is fascinating,” Hutch said as he refilled his own glass. “The dynamics here in Colorado Springs are so different from Denver as to be another beast entirely.”
“How so?”
“When you don’t have a military presence to keep the population from devolving into their baser selves, survival consumes all your attention, all the time. Continuing to draw breath becomes your top priority.”
Todd nodded. “Same as Pueblo. You didn’t question whether you were right or wrong, you just did what you had to do. To hell with the existential shit.”
“That all underscores how lucky we all are to be where we are,” said Jax, sounding more defensive than he’d intended. “Thanks to the military, people have a place where they can get away from that. Where they can help rebuild the republic.”
“Assuming they live long enough,” said Todd. “Even if they survived the chaos of the collapse, they still have this fucking winter to get through.”
“Hear, hear,” said Hutch. “Mother Nature is cordially invited to chew on my hairy root.”
“How are your companions doing, anyway?” Jax asked. “You’re the only one I’ve seen since we dropped you off.”
“They’re well, thanks. All of us have settled downtown. Being able to sleep with both eyes closed has done wonders for everyone’s temperament.”
“Glad to hear it. A lot of people in this city could do with an attitude adjustment these days, including yours truly.”
Hutch waggled the bottle. “I told you I’m buying. If there’s a better way to adjust one’s attitude that doesn’t involve genitalia, I don’t know of it.”
“I have to pick up my kid from school.”
“Your kid?” Hutch’s eyes narrowed. “You and your child both survived Eko?”
Jax suddenly felt as if he were under a microscope. The circumstances of his and Hayley’s vaccination weren’t exactly something he wanted to talk about.
“She was my girlfriend’s daughter,” he said. “Back in Germany. Her mother died from Eko in the early days of the outbreak, so I brought her with me when we were deployed here.”
“I see. And I suppose I should have realized there would be a school; heaven forbid we kept the little beggars from being brainwashed into following society’s norms in this brave new world.”
Hutch was grinning, but the look in his eye made Jax suspect he wasn’t being entirely sarcastic.
“You were a teacher,” he said. “You of all people should know the value of education.”
“Perhaps. But I’m also in a unique position to understand how little use my education has been since society went down the shitter. My incredibly sharp predicate logic skills didn’t help much when I was scrounging for canned goods while av
oiding the armed gangs roaming the streets.”
“Jesus,” said Todd. “And I thought I was surly.”
Hutch grinned and shook his head. “You’re absolutely correct, Wallace. I’m harshing the vibe, as my students used to say. Time to think happier thoughts, especially in the presence of my savior.”
“I think it’s time to let that joke go,” Jax said as he rose from his chair.
“It’s no joke, Captain. I expect to shine your boots eventually, or offer some other form of compensation.”
“I’ll be sure tothink of something.” Jax pulled on his outerwear. “Have a good one, gentlemen. Todd, thanks for backing up my idea.”
“I’ll think of some way for you to pay me back,” he said, finishing the dregs of his whiskey.
Jax rolled his eyes. “Hey Hutch, I have an idea: how about you just pay Todd back and leave me out of the whole thing?”
“That’s not how it works.” Hutch raised his glass. “A great pleasure, Captain. I mean that.”
“Same here,” said Jax as he walked into the hall and turned toward the entrance. He was surprised to realize that he actually meant it.
Hutch poured another round after Jax left.
“A good man, that,” he said.
Todd hoisted the glass to his lips and downed the top-shelf bourbon in one shot. He’d been drinking too much the past couple of months, he knew, but he wasn’t in the mood to cut back right now.
“Yeah, Booth is Captain America, all right.”
“He believes in a cause, which is more than most can say these days.” Hutch took a sip from his own glass. “Which begs the question: what’s a nihilist like you doing serving on the president’s advisory council?”
Todd snorted. “Nihilist? Me?”
“Textbook. Which is odd, considering you come from a military background yourself.”
The booze had dulled Todd’s wits just enough that he reacted to his companion’s insight with good humor instead of suspicion. Elwood Hutchinson had a serious brain under that tangled bush of dreadlocks.