EVIL IN THE DARKNESS
WRATH & RIGHTEOUSNESS
[Episode Eight]
CHRIS STEWART
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used factiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locals or persona, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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CONTENTS
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
“The totalitarian phenomenon is not to be understood without making allowance for the thesis that some important part of every society consists of people who actively want tyranny: either to exercise it themselves or—much more mysteriously—to submit to it. Democracy will therefore always remain at risk.”
—Jean-Francois Revel,
Last Exit to Utopia—The Survival of Socialism in a Post-Soviet Era
ONE
Fourteen Miles East of Little Rock, Arkansas
Lieutenant Bono pulled his camouflage jacket around him and rolled over in his sleep. He was crammed in the backseat of a black Cadillac, the largest car abandoned on the freeway that he could find, but his feet were still jammed against the rear door and his legs were cramped from being bent. He had taken off his boots and placed them on the floor beside him; other than that he was fully dressed. He’d rolled up an extra pair of pants to make a rough pillow and spread his military jacket over him for a blanket, though it only covered him to his waist. His gear and backpack were beside him on the floor, everything organized and tidy, just as it should be. Attention to detail. Keep things tight. Keep things clean and oiled and always ready for a fight.
The military issue 9-mm Beretta Special Forces handgun was under the front seat, within easy reach. The tiny, pearl-handled .22 caliber pistol he’d picked up in Baltimore was, as always, strapped around his calf.
Bono shivered in his sleep. It was really cold outside. Frost had formed on the front window, creating a maze of crystals that, in half an hour, when the sun came up, would reflect in tiny prisms of light. His breath formed a light mist in front of his face. The lieutenant rolled over, pulled the jacket to his chin, shivered, and slowly opened his eyes. He lay there for a moment trying to figure out where he was, the semidarkness of predawn illuminating the car in gray light. Within a few seconds it all came back to him and he was instantly awake.
He got up, pulled on his boots, climbed out of the car, and stretched. A small ditch ran under the freeway and he climbed down to it, washing his face and shaving as quickly as he could. He hadn’t shaved in days and it felt good to get the itchy stubble off his neck. Working his way upstream, he traced the water in the growing light until he found a pool where the small stream was calm and clear. He studied the water, looking for signs of vermin or other water life. He sifted it with his fingers, smelled it, let it drip against the light, tasted it, then sat back on his haunches and thought. He had iodine pills in his backpack, but only a few weeks’ worth, and who knew what lay ahead? The next water hole he found might be little better than a sewer, while this seemed fairly clear. Take his chances? Wait for better? He thought for a moment, then leaned over and drank deeply, filling his stomach as much as he could, then his canteen, then the plastic water bottles the Air Force sergeant had given him on the flight into Little Rock. Scrambling up the embankment, he walked back to the freeway and climbed up onto the roof of the car.
The sun was up now, its yellow rays slanting across the horizon, and he took a few minutes to look around. Interstate 40, the major artery between Little Rock and Memphis, ran east and west. Lines of dead cars cluttered the freeway as far as he could see. To the west, toward Little Rock, he could see multiple lines of smoke lifting into the calm sky. Thousands of people, all of them refugees, had moved into the country now, setting up makeshift camps of various shapes and sizes. The nearest campfire was two, maybe three hundred yards behind him. Looking east, he saw no fires. The roads between the major cities appeared to be mostly deserted. Still, he didn’t plan on walking along the freeway. Too many people there. He pulled out his map and studied it in the growing light. The old State Road 70 paralleled the freeway a couple of miles to the south. Using his fingers, he measured the distance to the small ranch where his wife was staying with her parents. Twenty-five, fifty, seventy-five miles. He thought it over. He wouldn’t run, but his walking pace was as quick as a slow man could jog, which meant he could cover maybe thirty miles a day if he kept it up. Two and a half, maybe three days to get there.
Just enough time to kiss his wife, hug his daughter, and turn around and head back to his military unit again.
He thought about his last conversation with his unit commander back in Washington, D.C., and the very specific instructions he’d been given. “You have two weeks. Understand me, Lieutenant. Fourteen days. Not an hour more. I can’t believe I’m doing this anyway, letting you guys even try to go home. But I want you back here, understand. I want you checking in in two weeks. We’re in the middle of a war here. I don’t think I need to remind you. Now go on, get out of here.”
Bono counted the days. One night in the military aircraft flying down to Little Rock. Two days walking south and east. Three days since he’d left Washington, D.C. A total of six days to get to his family, had to plan on six days getting back, which left him two days to spend with his wife and daughter.
Part of him swore in frustration at so little time; part of him smiled at the thought of two days with his family. Two days of heaven and bliss. Truth was, he would walk a year across the Gobi Desert to spend two days with them. He’d crawl across broken glass and nails to spend an hour with his wife.
Jumping down from the roof of the car, he opened the backdoor, took out his backpack, pulled out an incredibly dense military meal bar—two thousand calories of what tasted like sweetened rust and nails, as far as he could tell—hoisted his backpack, checked the weapon in the holster at the small of his back, turned southeast, and started walking with a long, determined gait.
The sun rose and it got warmer. Half an hour later, he started to sweat. His stomach growled. He felt a little dizzy. Sweat began to drip down his ribs.
Twenty minutes later, just as he climbed the embankment of State Road 70, he leaned over and started
heaving in gushes.
An hour later, he knew he was in trouble. Whatever was in the water, he felt like it was killing him.
Two gut-wrenching hours later, he wished it would.
TWO
Raven Rock (Site R), Underground Military Complex, Southern Pennsylvania
It was a small group, two women and five men, not including the new president of the United States. With the exception of the lean, thick-haired man who found himself in the amazingly unfamiliar position of sitting in the president’s chair, the members of the group knew each other intimately, having worked together from behind locked doors, aboard private jets, and inside luxury villas for many years. Along the wall before them, a secure conference system brought in video feeds from Paris, London, and Berlin. Altogether, thirteen people were on the line. And though he sat at the head of the conference table, President Albert J. Fuentes didn’t control the meeting, set the agenda, or have very much to say.
He was a weak man, a coyote of a leader, doomed to follow the pack, with no more intelligence or talent than the average man out on the street. The only things he had in great abundance were good looks, an empty character, and hot, burning, soul-selling, back-stabbing ambition. He also had camera presence, having started out as a television newsman, reading other people’s words from a teleprompter as if they were his own.
It was a deadly but useful combination, and the reason why he just might be the perfect choice.
The old man sat on the same style of black leather chair as they all did, but he hunched lower, old and shriveled, almost pygmy-like against the enormous conference table. The others watched him carefully, listening to his every word. He gestured toward Fuentes. “This is him?” he asked.
The others only nodded.
The old man raised an eyebrow. “He’s the best you got?” He smiled weakly as he said it. Fuentes thought that he was kidding. The others knew he was not. “I don’t know. I really don’t,” the old man went on. “I feel like I’m on the iceberg watching the Titanic bearing down. It’s a full moon. We’ll see the bodies. This is going to be a mess.”
The newly appointed vice president, the man who’d chosen Fuentes, sat forward in his chair. He was intense, moody, brilliant, and one of the wealthiest men in the United States. He had already mastered money; now he mastered power. “It’s going to work,” was all he said. There was significant, if unknown, meaning in his words.
Sensing the mood of the people in the room, Fuentes shifted angrily. He did not know the old man, had never seen him before in his life (and he knew everyone who was anyone, or so he thought), and his indignation rose. “I remind you, sir, that you are speaking to the president of the United States.”
The old man didn’t respond as he stared at Fuentes.
“He’ll do what we tell him to,” the new vice president went on, speaking as if Fuentes weren’t there. “And remember, he was the next in line of succession. We had to follow protocol. We couldn’t push too far. I mean, we’ve already had to kill one of them and put another into a coma. We thought it best not to have to kill him, too.”
“You’re going to have to kill him eventually. Might as well do it now,” said the old man.
Fuentes’ face grew white, his lips tight. Was it him they were talking about? He couldn’t even tell. Surely not. He must have missed it. No one looked at him.
The vice president brought his elbows atop his armrest and put his fingers to his lips, building a small tent before his face. He glanced patiently at Fuentes. “I trust him,” was all he said.
The old man pulled on his feeble chin. It was covered with white hairs, scattered and wispy, some of them far too long, as if it was hard to shave between the deep creases on his face. And he exuded an odor. It wasn’t strong and it wasn’t necessarily unpleasant, but there was something odd, almost unworldly. Fuentes sniffed the air, trying to identify it. It was old stale air released from a sealed room within an ancient temple; an old book that hadn’t been opened for many years; an old house; a rotting tree; it was, what? He couldn’t tell and maybe it was that simple. The old man just smelled old.
The old man cocked his head to the right, then leaned toward Fuentes. “Do you love your country?” he asked.
Fuentes hesitated. What was the answer he was looking for? “There are things I love about it,” he finally said.
“Do you think it can be rebuilt?”
“Of course I do.”
“Do you think it should be rebuilt?”
The president of the United States looked down. This was where they had him. He answered carefully. “We have made mistakes. Plenty of them. There are many things we shouldn’t have done. We’ve hurt the world, there is no question. Most of the world hates us now, and who are we to blame them, when we even hate ourselves? We’ve oppressed, robbed and plundered. Pumped our filth into the air. We’ve started wars to keep the oil coming, spilling blood to prime the pump—”
The old man raised a hand to stop him. “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before. Some of what you said is truthful, but most of it is crap. You’ve got to learn to see the difference.”
Fuentes hesitated. “We’ve grown weak,” he concluded. “We could be stronger, so much stronger, if we take the proper steps.”
The old man pulled out a pack of cigarettes, tapped the box, extracted a filter, and held the cigarette between his dry lips. “Do you realize that you can’t lie to me?” he said.
Fuentes kept his eyes down. Such an unusual thing to say.
“You can’t lie to me,” the old man said again. “You can’t deceive me. I can see into your soul. I sense your deepest thoughts by the flicker in your eye. I know your heart by the way you look at me. I know everything about you. More than you even know yourself. You forget. I never do.” The old man stopped, lit the cigarette, and sat back against his chair.
Fuentes started to fidget, brushing his hands across his face.
“You’re forty-seven,” the man continued. “You used to be a Republican but switched parties when your old boss told you there were better opportunities in the new administration for a man such as yourself.”
Fuentes looked up at the old man, his courage building. That was no secret. Anyone who knew him would know about that.
The man drew a breath of smoke, then broke into an evil smile. “You tell your friends and family, even your wife, that you’ve got a lot of money, but the truth is, you’ve got nothing. Not a dime, as far as I can tell, and you’ve been broke for years. If it weren’t for credit cards, and a handful of overly generous friends, I think you’d be living on the street.”
Fuentes frowned and started to answer but the old man cut him off. “That’s OK, I can live with beggars. It’s some of these other things I find more interesting.” He pulled himself forward by the edge of the table. “When you were ten, you and one of your old buddies, what was his name, David Butter, yeah, I’m sure that’s it, the two of you found a litter of kittens in the old barn behind your grandma’s house. Do you remember that, Albert?”
The president sat lower in his seat, his face growing pale now and sick.
“You put them in a small bag . . . .”
Fuentes shifted on his chair. A cold chill seeped into the room. “Stop it,” he muttered quietly.
“You dropped them in the creek. Five little kittens. There was no reason. I’ve got to tell you, I think that’s a bit sick. Then, remember back in high school, that sweet young thing you took to the prom—what was her name? Kristen, yes, I think that’s it. A real cute little girl. So much younger than you were . . . .”
Fuentes wanted to scream, but he was silent, overcome with gut-wrenching surprise and fear. Who was this man? How did he know these things? Where did he get his information?
The old man stared at him. His lips were smiling but his eyes were blank and dark. “Funny, isn’t it, Mr. President,” the name was sweet syrup on his lips, “a man of your background and education; a young television reporter, then Harvard,
then state attorney general, U.S. assistant attorney general and now president of the United States. Yet you have so many peculiar habits. So many late nights on the computer. What are you staring at all that time? Why does your wife sleep in the basement? What is she afraid of, President Fuentes?”
The old man stopped and drew another smoke. Fuentes kept his eyes down. His hands trembled on the table, and his breath was short and tight.
“Look at me,” the old man said to him. “Look at me right now.”
Fuentes reluctantly raised his eyes.
The old man leaned toward him. “You’re not who I would have chosen, but some things are beyond even my control. When you’re a member of the Donner party and someone throws you a bone, you’ve got to take it and chew on it, sucking out whatever marrow you can get, know what I mean? And that’s where we are now. Someone threw you to us. Now we’re going to chew.
“But I want you to remember: I know you. I have known you well for years. Yes, we’re going to use you, but there are many things we have to teach you first, many things you need to know. Who I am. Who these others are. What we intend to do. It will come slowly, but we will teach you, and this is your first lesson: You can’t lie to me. You can’t deceive me. So please, don’t even try. All it will do is hurt you. And we don’t want to hurt you, friend.”
Fuentes took a breath and held it, then looked up at the old man. “I understand,” he muttered, though he understood not a thing at all.
“All right, then. We understand each other. Now, let me ask again. We have a chance to rebuild this nation, but in another way, after a different model, a model we’ll control. Are you willing to support us? It all comes down to that.”
Fuentes pressed his lips together and adjusted his perfect hair. Leaning forward, he lowered his voice to a dry whisper. “If you say you truly know me, then you already know I will.”
The old man smashed his cigarette. “Let’s get to work,” he said.
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