by Sam Sisavath
“I don’t want you to beg.”
“What do you want?”
“Tell me everything about Mercer. About this war of his. If you want a prayer of me saying yes, I want to know everything.”
“Everything?”
“Everything,” she said. “Start at the beginning…”
* * *
They sat across from one another in the Ocean Star’s galley—the only two people in the entire place—with chunks of SPAM and fried fish on plastic trays between them. Like life on the Trident, Riley’s people had no trouble fishing the Gulf of Mexico for a steady diet of fish every day. She took note that the kitchen in the back still had a working refrigerator, which meant Riley had plenty of diesel fuel to waste.
We could definitely use some of that.
“The people here and the ones out there fighting his war right now wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for him,” Riley said. “He saved our lives. Literally and figuratively. The first few weeks were the hardest, but I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. You were out there, too.”
She didn’t say anything. The first few weeks of The Purge were not something she liked to dwell on.
May you burn in hell, John Sunday. You and your brothers.
“He knew about the oil rigs,” Riley was saying. “He knew about a lot of other things that never occurred to me or most people. I don’t know how he knew. It’s one of the many mysteries surrounding Mercer. He doesn’t talk much about his past, and he doesn’t have to. His actions did all the speaking for him.” Riley paused and seemed to take a few seconds to search his thoughts. Then, “What you have to understand is, we followed him because we wanted to, because we believed in him. Nothing he did up until what they call R-Day affected that belief. For most of us, anyway.”
“What finally changed your mind?”
“The realization that it was happening. The war. It was actually happening. Before, it was just theory. And then…it wasn’t.”
“You said there are forty-seven people on the Ocean Star—forty-eight, counting yourself. How many are out there running around Texas?”
“Over 500,” Riley said. “That’s not including the people in the other FOBs.”
“In all?”
“Almost a thousand.”
It sounded like a lot, but even as she turned the number over in her head, she knew it wasn’t really. There was a colonel in Colorado who had over 4,000 civilians and military personnel hiding in a bunker called Bayonet Mountain with him at this very moment. Compared to that, “almost a thousand” people wasn’t nearly as impressive. Then again, it wasn’t as if you needed a lot of warm bodies to drop bombs and shell a helpless town filled with pregnant women and civilians.
“He managed to save that many all by himself?” she asked.
“Not by himself,” Riley said. “He started small, with a handful, but the numbers grew and soon they were able to cover more ground, pull more people out of their hiding places. In the beginning, there were just four of them. Mercer and three others. I made five.”
“You were there at the planning stages of his war.”
Riley shook his head. “It wasn’t a war then. Not really. Yes, he talked about it, but he never gave any specifics, and for the longest time it was just this abstract thing he would bring up every once in a while. Mostly it was just people trying to stay alive and help each other do the same. He found out about the silver a long time before we even heard your radio broadcast. But he didn’t know about water or UV lights, otherwise we would have used places like the Ocean Star a lot earlier.” Riley poked unenthusiastically at his food with a plastic spork before continuing. “Eventually we transitioned from survival mode to planning. We’d always been good at searching and loading up on food, supplies, and fuel, but I didn’t know what they were really for.”
“His war.”
Riley nodded. “He’s had it on his mind from day one; he just never let us in on any of the details. Back then, we were just glad to be alive and searching for other survivors, and we never knew any better. I guess you could say we were blissfully ignorant and loving it.”
“Where did you get the war machines? The planes?”
“The problem isn’t finding them; it’s training people to use them. We only had one pilot, a former Iraq War airman named Cole. He was able to train two others.”
“Why just two?”
“Not everyone can fly a plane, Lara. It’s not as easy as climbing into the cockpit and stepping on the gas pedal.”
“I guess not.”
“We located a unit of Abrams tanks at an Army base. All the ammo we needed was just sitting there for the taking. The tanks are easier to train for—all you really need is a manual and a lot of space—but they have limited range and they’re not exactly subtle. From the reports we’re getting out of Texas, Mercer’s already lost two of his tanks assaulting the towns. The kill squads will eventually do more damage to the collaborators than the war machines as the war goes on.”
“Kill squads?”
“Basically hit-and-run teams. They’re mostly autonomous, and their job—their only job—is to sow confusion among the enemy ranks, make them think there are more of us out there than there actually are. It’s a dangerous job, and the ones running around out there are all volunteers. The hardest of the hardcore Mercer believers.”
“Sounds like a bunch of nice guys.”
“Not really. Anyway, this is just the beginning. His version of shock and awe. Strike first and fast, before the enemy knows what’s happening.”
“By indiscriminately killing a lot of innocent people?”
“That part…” He shook his head. “It caught a lot of us by surprise. It’s why I’m here. Why everyone’s here.”
Lara considered that the look in his eyes might have been all for her benefit, but she didn’t think so. She hadn’t noticed it before, but now that she was sitting across from him and neither one of them had moved for a long time, she saw the bags under his eyes, proof that rest wasn’t something Riley was familiar with for a while now.
“Phase one was shock and awe,” she said. “What’s phase two?”
“Recruitment,” Riley said. “Mercer knows he can’t keep fighting this with just 500 soldiers, even as well-trained and committed as they are. Guns and ammo aren’t the issue. We cleaned up more than one Army depot before all of this. His plan was always to start with Texas, get the Texans behind him, before expanding to the other states. He thinks if he inflicts enough damage, make them fear him enough, that he can convert the collaborators, including all the townspeople that can pick up a gun and fight with him.”
“Why now? Why didn’t he just wait until he had more men?”
“He said we couldn’t, that the longer we waited the more comfortable the townspeople would become with their new life, and it would be harder to convince them. That, and with every FOB we establish, we increase our risk of being discovered. I don’t know how much of that was bullshit, honestly.”
“What if that doesn’t work?” Lara asked. “What if the collaborators won’t turn? What if they keep resisting him and he has to kill more and more people?”
Riley pursed his lips. “Then a lot of people are going to die for no reason.” He put his spork down and looked intently across the table at her. “Now you know why I have to get my people out of here. I won’t let Mercer throw them into the meat grinder. The only option is to run.”
* * *
“What exactly does he want from us again?” Blaine asked.
“To transport his people away from here,” Lara said.
“Where is this magical place he wants to take them?” Carly asked.
Lara shook her head. “He hasn’t told me yet.”
“In case you say no?” Blaine said.
“That would be my guess. I don’t blame him. I’d do the same.”
The warmth inside the bridge of the Trident was a welcome change from the chill of the oil rig and the stuffy air in its
hallways. She stood inside the room with Blaine and Carly, the three of them staring out the windshield at the Ocean Star seemingly fastened permanently to the Gulf of Mexico. To look at it, she wouldn’t have known there were nervous civilians crowding its rooms and hallways or anxious commandos waiting to rebel against the man who saved them.
“I guess he’s not entirely dumb,” Carly said. “Last night notwithstanding.”
“He didn’t have a choice,” Lara said. “Or he didn’t think he did, anyway. He’s walking a razor’s wire. Playing the loyal soldier to Mercer while committing what amounts to treason behind his back.”
“Just from what I hear about this Mercer guy,” Blaine said, shaking his head, “I definitely don’t wanna end up on his shit list.”
“Neither does Riley.”
“So what do we get in return for playing chauffeur to his forty-seven people?” Carly asked.
“Forty-eight, including Riley,” Lara said. “The most important thing we’ll get is fuel, since a dead-in-the-water Trident won’t exactly help him execute his plans.”
“Execute,” Carly said. “Nice choice of words, boss lady.”
Lara smiled. “Point is, we can fit forty-eight more people onboard. At least temporarily.”
“You sure about that?”
“Blaine?” Lara said, looking over at the big man for confirmation.
He nodded. “It’ll be a tight squeeze, but it’s not impossible. We’ll fill up the cabins and open areas, and push comes to shove they can spill outside onto the decks. Lots of space on the aft and bow.”
“And hey, a little extra sun never hurt anyone, right?” Carly said.
“They’ll also be loading us with supplies, too,” Lara said.
“What kind of supplies?”
“Food, water, guns, and ammo. He’s agreed to let us have as much food as we can carry in our galley, but I told him he could keep his guns and ammo.”
“You can never have too much ammo,” Blaine said.
Carly chuckled.
“What’s so funny?” Blaine said.
“That sounds like something Will or Danny would say.”
Blaine smiled. “Best compliment I’ve gotten all year.”
“Speaking of Danny,” Lara said. “Did he radio in yet?”
Carly’s face sobered up and Lara got her answer. She glanced at the digital clock on the bridge’s dashboard: 9:17 a.m.
“He’s late,” Carly said. “And not the oh-shit-Aunt-Flow’s-late sort of late, either.”
“Did you try making contact with him?”
“He’s not answering, either. No one is.”
“They’re probably busy looking for a way down to the shoreline. You know how unpredictable it is out there. If he ran into trouble, he would have let us know yesterday. Did he say anything?”
“No, but…”
“But?”
“I don’t know,” Carly said. “I got the feeling he wanted to tell me something, but didn’t, for whatever reason.” She shook her head and put on a brave face. “Of course, when it comes to Danny, I’ve learned it’s not always a wise policy to assume he has more going on upstairs than meets the eye.”
Lara reached over and put a hand on Carly’s arm and got a pursed smile in return.
“How does transporting Riley’s people and waiting to pick up Danny work?” Blaine asked. “What if Danny boy calls while we’re en route to wherever Riley wants us to take them?”
“I don’t know,” Lara said. “But we’ll do what we always do—deal with what’s in front of us and pivot if something comes up after that.”
“So we’re definitely doing this?” Carly asked.
“We need their fuel,” Lara said. “It won’t hurt to restock our galley at the same time.”
“I assume this means you think we can trust him,” Blaine asked.
“I think so.”
“You need to be sure, Lara.”
Lara nodded, maybe more to convince herself than Blaine. “Yes, we can trust him.”
And she thought, God, I hope I’m right…
* * *
Faith, the girl who had been driving her back and forth between the Ocean Star and the Trident, was coming back to pick her up. This time Lara wouldn’t be alone, and stood at the swimming platform at the back of the yacht with Hart at her side and the other five men behind them. They were rubbing their wrists and blinking at the sun like prisoners who hadn’t been let out for years instead of less than twenty-four hours.
“You made the right choice,” Hart said. “I know it couldn’t have been an easy one, but then, you are Lara.”
“You figured that out too, huh?” she said.
“After our first talk last night,” he nodded. “You sound different in person, but I’ve heard your voice enough times that it’s stuck in a loop inside my head.”
She gave him a curious look.
“Some of the guys carry around iPods with your broadcasts on them,” Hart said and smiled almost shyly at her. “During a supply run in the early days, one of the groups raided an Apple store. They brought back stacks of those tiny iPods. They’re pretty good for loading with music, or in your case, inspirational messages. Doesn’t take much power to charge, either, and they last a ridiculously long time.”
“Are you telling me there are guys running around out there with iPods loaded with my broadcast?”
“Uh huh.”
“That’s…disturbing.”
“It’s hard to explain, but your messages, especially the first one—this stranger speaking to us through the airwaves one night, telling us how to fight back, that there’s hope as long as we don’t give up…” He shook his head and again looked almost embarrassed. “It had a profound effect on a lot of us, more than you’ll ever know.”
Lara felt a slight shiver run through her at the thought of Mercer’s (killers) men flying around in planes bombing civilians or rolling around in tanks shelling pregnant women while listening to and getting inspiration from her messages. The whole thing made her want to vomit, and it was all she could do to concentrate on the approaching vessel instead. Hart must have seen her discomfort, because he let the topic go.
She couldn’t be sure, but Faith looked like she was smiling widely as she got closer. The young woman had upgraded to a bigger boat now that she would be driving six extra bodies back to the oil rig instead of just Lara.
“What about Mercer?” she asked Hart.
“What about him?” Hart said.
“When did you figure out he wasn’t who he said he was?”
“That’s the thing. I can’t really say if he ever actually lied to us.”
“No?”
Hart scrunched his face in thought, his graying hair rising and falling against the cool wind. “He gave us everything he promised, and in return we gave him our loyalty. It wasn’t like he demanded it. We gave it to him willingly.”
“You still think you had a choice?”
Hart sighed. “Maybe not. Maybe it was one of those unspoken trade-offs. Whatever it was, I don’t think he ever lied to us. He might not have told us everything, but in the early days, as we were preparing for what the younger guys called R-Day, I don’t think most of us—or maybe it was just me—fully understood what he was asking us to do.”
“Slaughter innocents…”
“Yeah,” Hart said quietly, as if that one word drained all of his energy.
One of the five men behind them walked forward and waved at Faith. He was young, with short blond hair, and was beaming as Faith approached them.
James, I presume.
Lara looked past Faith at the Ocean Star waiting for them in the near distance. She ended up staring at the towering crane, which looked like a stray limb poking out of the sea. If she stared hard enough, she thought she might have spotted something moving around up there. But of course it could just be the bright sun playing tricks on her eyes.
“Riley told me there was a guy named Peters up there,” she
said, pointing at the crane.
Hart nodded. “Uh huh.”
“He said Peters never misses.”
“He doesn’t.”
“First time for everything.”
Hart smiled. “Not with Peters.”
15
Gaby
Whatever confidence Benford and Fritz had while they assaulted the bank fizzled when their number was halved, with Kip and Justin likely dead somewhere out there. How else would Mason have gotten his hands on their radio?
Gaby couldn’t help but look down at her watch every few minutes. Nightfall came fast in Texas in the winter, and it would be pitch-dark by 5:30 p.m.
And right now…1:46 p.m.
Time flies when you’re outgunned.
She looked across the bank lobby at Fritz and Benford crouched at the front of the building. Fritz was peeking out of the hole in the wall while Benford moved from the still-intact front doors to the remaining windows. At some point during his back and forth, he took out his ham radio and spoke into it. He kept his voice low, as if he knew she was eavesdropping, but because of the short distance, she managed to hear snippets of the conversation anyway. Benford did most of the talking and she caught the words ghouls and torch it before he turned the radio off and slipped it back into his pack.
Gaby exchanged a look with Danny, both their backs against the island counter. They were close enough to see the empty street outside but far enough to stay out of the path of any stray bullets. Hopefully, anyway.
She mouthed at him, “Did he say ‘Torch it?’”
Danny nodded.
“What did he mean?” she mouthed.
Danny shrugged and she swore he mouthed back, “Tacos,” but that couldn’t have been right, because it didn’t make any sense.
She gave him a questioning look and he grinned, and she thought, Dammit, Danny, this is no time for one of your stupid jokes.
She sighed and looked forward at Fritz and Benford. Somewhere beyond the hole between the two men was Mason and who knew how many collaborators. Either he had finally gotten the reinforcements Benford had been waiting for, or Mason had left with enough men to take both Justin and Kip out. Either way, Mason was out there and he had the upper hand, because there was no way for them to leave Gallant First Bank without being shot.