by Riley Flynn
“Yessir.”
He watched as Lewis headed for his own office down the hall, wondering if he’d seen Smith enter or leave. Not that it mattered: things were going to change starting tomorrow. He scanned his office—the antique furniture, the opulent woodwork, the high ceiling—and wondered if it would still be his by this time the next day. He was surprised by how little he cared at the moment.
Let the chips fall where they may, he thought, tossing the broken bottle into a wastebasket next to the desk.
23
“You’re lucky the children are sleeping under the mountain tonight,” said Emily Sidley as she closed the door behind him. “Otherwise this would have had to wait until morning.”
“I’m afraid that wouldn’t have been an option,” said Smith, “no matter the circumstances.”
There was more annoyance in her expression than concern, but he knew that would change momentarily. She motioned for him to sit on the low-backed couch in the living room of her suite; she sat in the chair opposite him. A little ceramic heater whirred away in the corner of the room, fighting back the chill of the night air.
“So this isn’t a social call?” she said with a grin that only he would have recognized as sarcastic.
“Archer is going to talk.”
He watched with supreme satisfaction as the blood drained from her face. Didn’t see that one coming, did you?
“Details,” she breathed. “Now.”
He told her about his discussion with the general. By the time he was done, her brow had furrowed to the point where every line in her face seemed highlighted.
“Does he know about me?” she asked.
Smith thought about letting her stew, or worse, lying and making her squirm. But he didn’t have time for games.
“No. I’m not an idiot.”
She let out a shaky breath. “All right. At least that much is safe.”
“Only because I chose it to be so,” he said. “Remember that.”
Her smile seemed more genuine now as she leaned forward and placed a hand on top of his.
“I do know it,” she said. “And I appreciate it. You know I do.”
Uh-huh, he thought. Sure you do.
“Obviously, we need to do something about this,” he said. “And fast. I’m sure he’ll be meeting with Raines first thing.”
“Don’t worry about the president,” she said. “We just need to make sure Archer doesn’t go public. I think we both know what that means.”
“Obviously. But I don’t have time to prepare, and he’s not some computer tech on a geek squad; he may be old, but Archer is one of the toughest soldiers to ever wear a uniform.”
She nodded, deep in thought. “And he’d be missed almost immediately.”
“Exactly.”
They sat in silence for several moments. Smith was used to thinking on the fly, but he was coming up short here. No viable option seemed to be presenting itself.
Then he felt her hand squeeze his.
“No one has found Farries yet, correct?” she asked.
“I would have let you know if they had. Why?”
She grinned. “Don’t worry, Adam.” It was the first time she’d called him by his real name since before the collapse. “I think things will work out just fine. After all, people like us are trained to find opportunity in crisis.”
24
Before the world went to shit, the Broadmoor was known for the spectacular sunsets that bathed the west side of the building in light as the sun set behind the mountains, and tonight was no exception.
Elwood Hutchinson and Wallace Todd were watching it from the Penrose Lounge, their drinking hole of choice. They were surrounded by others who had come to drink the night away, though Jax wondered how many of them were even paying attention to the light show outside the window. They were more interested in the bottoms of their glasses.
Hutch’s eyes lit up under his round glasses as he caught sight of Jax and Maggie.
“What ho, weary travellers!” he crowed. “Pull up a chair and join us! Young Wallace here is exceedingly dull tonight.”
“I’m looking at the sunset,” Todd griped. “Jesus, do I have to entertain you every minute of every day?”
It was the first time Jax had really paid attention to the differences between the two men: Hutch was obviously a Bohemian philosopher with a PhD, while Todd was a Navy veteran (Jax had long suspected he’d been a SEAL before mustering out) who had no formal education that Jax knew of. And yet they were inseparable.
“Any sign of Farries yet?” Todd asked Maggie. “Not that I think he’s a threat to us or anything, but I’d like to get this thing over with. Plus, we need to get moving on an election to replace Lisa.”
“Afraid not,” she said. “Unless he really screws up, a guy like Farries can stay buried for as long as he wants in these circumstances.”
Todd glanced sideways at Jax. “Assuming you’re putting a real effort into the search, of course.”
Jax clenched his fist but immediately let it go again. They weren’t here to spar with Todd.
“Hutch, you told me you’d return the favor someday,” he said. “Could I call that in right now?”
The professor straightened up and nodded. “I’d be delighted with the opportunity, Captain. What can I do for you?”
“We’d just like to ask you some questions.”
“Questions about what?” asked Todd.
Jax opened his mouth to tell him it was none of his business, but Maggie beat him to it.
“We’re following up all leads in the case,” she said. “We also talked to the others who came in with him. You can ask them, if you want.”
“I’m happy to help in any way I can,” said Hutch. “Let’s do this, as they used to say.”
“I’m coming, too,” said Todd.
Like fuck you are, Jax said in his head, but he kept his mouth closed. It was Maggie’s show.
“That’s fine,” she said.
“I’m a big boy,” Hutch said to Todd. “I don’t need anyone to hold my hand.”
“I’m on the president’s council, and I want to make sure everything is on the up and up. So I’m coming.”
Hutch glanced from Jax to Maggie, then at Todd. “I have nothing to hide. We can do this right here, if that’s more convenient for you.”
“We wanted to give you the opportunity for privacy,” said Maggie. “If you’re comfortable here, then that’s your choice.”
He plucked the bottle of scotch from the table and refilled his glass. “This is the only comfort I need.”
Maggie grinned. “All right, then, I’ll start: you told Jax that you were a professor at CU Boulder, but your friends didn’t meet you until they got to Denver. Is that correct?”
“Correctamundo. Is that all?”
“What were you doing in Denver if your job was in Boulder?” asked Jax, ignoring the look that Maggie shot at him.
“That time is a bit of a blur. I tend not to pay attention to the outside world, and I eschewed social media my entire life. And, as you no doubt have sussed out for yourselves, I enjoy whiskey a great deal. My first clue that something was amiss was when I arrived for the first day of classes in September and there were only a handful of vehicles in the lot. I took a wander through the university’s halls to discover only a few faculty and staff had even showed up that day, and not a single student. That was the beginning of my crash course in the collapse.
“Like many others, I squirrelled myself away for a few months in the hopes the chaos would eventually die down. In January, I finally decided that anything was better than my current circumstances, so I lit out for the south in the hopes of finding—well, something like what you people have created here. But winter had other plans, and stranded me in Denver until my new companions showed up, and we made the monumentally stupid decision to head out right before the blizzard of the century. The rest, as they say, is history.”
“Let’s fast forward,” said M
aggie. “You were the one who discovered Lisa Blume’s body.”
“You know I was with him,” Todd said. “He was just as surprised as I was.”
Jax had interrogated dozens of prisoners in his time, and he could always spot a lie. He watched every inflection, every facial movement, every bit of body language as Hutch spoke, and none of it set off his alarm bells.
He was disappointed, but not surprised, when Todd offered a corroborating opinion.
“I know a bit about interrogation,” said Todd. “And I’d stake my reputation that Hutch is telling you the truth.”
Jax felt his stomach sink as his house of cards came crashing down. After all this time, he was finally ready to give in and admit—not just the others, but to himself—that Farries was, indeed, their prime suspect.
Maggie tented her fingers under her chin. “I just have one more question,” she said. “I assume Wallace has told you about our encounter with a group of people in the mountains last fall?”
Todd looked suddenly abashed, which was all the answer Jax needed.
“That’s supposed to be on a need-to-know basis,” he said. “You know that, right, Todd?”
“I’m on the president’s council, Booth, so yeah, I know that. I also know that we’ll never be able to identify any infiltrators unless people know to look for them. So yeah, I tell certain people I trust.”
“Tuck your tallywhacker back in your jeans, Wallace,” said Hutch. “No one is measuring. Sheriff, you had a question for me before we were rudely interrupted.”
“Thank you,” Maggie said. “My question is this: would you be willing to swear loyalty to the new republic, right here and now?”
Jax watched the man’s eyes widen under those absurd glasses, and it was enough to make him wonder all over again.
“What kind of a question is that?” said Todd. “You can’t force someone to swear allegiance to something. That’s not the American way. I wouldn’t swear an oath to the republic myself, and I’m part of the fucking government.”
Jax fixed his gaze on Hutch’s. “Here’s how you can repay me for the debt you think you owe: answer the question truthfully.”
Todd scowled and crossed his arms over his chest, but the professor simply ran a big, knobby hand down his face and sighed. He was quiet for a long while, his palm wrapped around his mouth, his eyes fixed on the table.
“I would not be willing to swear loyalty to the new republic,” he said.
Jax felt a brief, small surge of hope. Could he catch the man in a trap? Maggie’s question had been a brilliant opportunity to cast more doubt.
But then Hutch turned to face him again, and again, the two locked eyes.
“But I hereby swear an oath of loyalty to you, Captain. I solemnly promise, here and now, that I will never do anything to harm you or anyone you care about. I’m not into institutions; I believe in people. And I believe in you.”
Shit. Hutch’s eyes were unflinching. He meant what he said.
Todd tilted his head at Maggie. “Good enough?”
“Good enough,” said Jax, extending his hand. “And my apologies for making you think you were anything less than welcome in Colorado Springs, professor. Will you accept?”
Hutch took his hand. “I would if there was anything to forgive, my friend, but there’s not. We’re cool.”
“I’m not cool with it,” said Todd. “But that’s got nothing to do with you, Hutch. We’ll take this up with the council.”
Jax sighed. “Do whatever you want, Todd—”
At that moment, the squelch went off on his radio. “Echo One, this is Echo Six, over.”
“Echo One here. What’s up, Quaid? Over.”
“Sir, is Sheriff Stubbs with you? Over.”
The urgency in Quaid’s voice was mildly alarming. “Affirmative, over.”
“Sir, you both need to get to the resort ASAP, over.”
“Why, what’s the situation? Over.”
“Sir, I don’t know how to say this.”
Jax felt his pulse quicken. “Just spit it out, man!”
“Sir, it’s Gen. Archer. He… he’s dead.”
25
“Where did everybody go?” Brandon asked.
Hayley peeked around the corner of the hallway she, Brooke, Brandon and Lucas had been stalking through for the past few minutes. They’d been playing a game where they got as close to grown-ups as they dared, then retreated back to a safe place where they couldn’t be seen. They’d worked their way up to a spot near the lobby when it suddenly seemed like there was no one else around.
“I don’t know,” she said. “There’s nobody in the lobby.”
“There’s always someone in the lobby,” said Brooke. “Even at night. Whenever I come down to get water or something, there’s a guard here, even at zero hundred hours.”
They looked at Lucas, who shrugged. He did that a lot. Sometimes he wasn’t all that much fun to be around. But he listened well, and they had to bring him along because he lived with Brooke and Brandon.
“The game’s no fun if we don’t have grown-ups to keep away from,” Hayley said as they wandered back down the hall. It led them to the storeroom where they had been hanging out, full of boxes to sit on and shelves of blankets and supplies, plus a bunch of spare winter clothes. Once there, they each pulled a box toward the middle of the room and climbed on.
“I miss Mom,” Brandon sighed.
Brooke rolled her eyes. “Not again. Brandon, you say that, like, a hundred times a day.”
“Because I miss her,” he said defiantly. “What’s the matter with that?”
“She left us, dummy. I don’t miss her, I’m mad at her.”
Hayley had heard this conversation a dozen times, and she always thought maybe Brooke wasn’t telling the truth. That she just pretended to be mad because she didn’t want to think about the fact their mom was gone. But they had a pretty good life with Ms. Sidley; they said as much all the time. And really, everybody missed their moms, including Hayley. She was lucky enough to have Jax and lots of adults who cared about her, but none of them were her mother.
“Do you miss the mountains?” she asked Lucas out of the blue. She knew he wouldn’t answer, but she was bored.
He shrugged, of course.
“I wouldn’t want to live in the mountains all the time,” Hayley. “But some of the time would be cool. Like right now, I bet you could make a snow fort the size of a house up there.” She looked at Lucas again. “Did you ski up there?”
She prepared herself for a shrug. Instead, she got a nod, and it thrilled her to a ridiculous degree.
“Whoa!” she hissed, making sure to keep her voice down despite her excitement. “You actually sad yes! Sort of!”
Brooke swatted the boy’s arm. “You’ve been holding out on us!”
He shrugged, and the other three broke into fits of soft laughter. After several moments, a tentative grin crept across Lucas’s face, too, which drew even more laughter.
“This is the most normal you’ve ever been,” Brooke sighed after the giggles had finally subsided. “How come you waited this long?”
He shrugged again, and it seemed the spell might be broken. Hayley wondered what it was that had set him off. She had mentioned skiing…
“Do you want to go out and play in the snow?” she asked.
Now the boy’s eyes positively lit up, and he nodded so hard his long hair bobbed and tossed around his face.
“Well, I guess that answers that question,” said Brooke. She looked around at the winter clothes. “There has to be stuff in here that fits.”
“I don’t think we should,” said Brandon. “We don’t know what’s out there.”
“There’s a golf course covered in, like, five feet of snow,” said Brooke. “There. Now you know.”
“We’re totally making a fort,” said Hayley.
Brooke’s eyes widened. “Maybe we could sleep in it!”
“Uh-uh,” Brandon protested. “No way
are we sleeping outside.”
“Jax says that Colorado Springs almost never gets this much snow in the city,” said Hayley. “We should enjoy this while we can. Let’s grab some warm gear and get outside.”
Lucas was the first one to the clothes.
The full moon cast a pale blue glow on the surface of the snow, turning the trees around them inky black. It was like watching an old black-and-white movie, and it was the coolest thing Hayley had seen in a long time.
They were only fifty yards or so from the back of the resort, but it might as well have been the surface of the moon. The four trudged through snow that at times was up to their hips with the boundless energy that only children can muster, their tracks refilling almost as quickly as they were making them. Lucas had taken the lead from the moment they went out through the door they’d discovered earlier, and the others followed as if it were the natural thing to do.
They finally came to a halt at the top of a low hill that was part of the golf course. Lucas bent down and started digging into the snow—it had hardened into a crust on top, which made it easier to dig a narrow tunnel underneath, almost like an igloo.
“This is so cool,” Brooke sighed, her breath coming out in a plume of white vapor in the moonlight.
“You mean cold!” Hayley said, and they giggled. She was joking, of course—the winter gear kept them toasty, except for their faces, which was fine. Even their fingers were warm inside the long mittens made specially for snowmobiling.
It took Lucas only minutes to burrow his way under the snow pile. Then he shimmied his way out and motioned for them to follow him back in. Brandon turned on the flashlight they’d liberated from the storeroom so they wouldn’t be sitting in total darkness. Once inside, they set themselves up in a snug circle around the glow that cast deep shadows on their grinning faces. Hayley thought Lucan looked happier than she’d ever seen him.
“So cool,” Brooke sighed again. “Let’s sleep here. It’ll be awesome!”
“Let’s take one thing at a time,” said Hayley. It’s what Jax would have said under the circumstances, she was sure.