by David Lucin
She gathered a slew of papers into a manila folder. “Anything else I can help you with for now, sir?”
Liam rubbed his eyes. “A cup of real coffee would be nice, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, it would.” She stared across the tent longingly, and then her face turned serious. “I agree with Morgan, sir. You should get some sleep. I’ll hold down the fort while you’re out.”
Townsend would make an excellent executive officer, Liam decided. If the Militia grew any larger, he’d have to promote her. Heck, she was already acting like his XO while running a platoon. Murphy was right about her—she was good. “Sure,” he said. He wouldn’t be able to sleep, but his platoon leaders might feel better if he pretended to try. “Thank you.”
She smiled, nodded her goodbye, and slipped out of the tent.
Alone, he massaged his left quad. He was still shocked that four Militia troops had managed to escape the Major’s clutches. Thanks to Jenn. Liam strongly disliked her when they first met, though he would never admit as much to Gary. She was loud, opinionated, and arrogant. Nothing like Gary’s real daughter, Camila, who was quiet, timid, and always respectful. But Liam had grown fond of Jenn in the two years she’d billeted with the Ruiz family, and he admired her strength and resolve. She’d turned out to be a fine squad leader. Whatever it took, Liam would bring her home safely.
So instead of retreating to his cot in the command tent, he opened an old satellite image of Anthem on his tablet and began studying the area around the school.
19
“Wakey, wakey, sunshine.”
The voice jolted Jenn from her restless sleep and sent her scurrying deeper into the corner of her cell. Cold sweat wet her shirt, and mulch from the floor clung to her hair. Last night, the Major had given her water and a quarter of a ration bar, but her mouth was still dry and her belly rumbled painfully.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” the Major said. He lowered himself onto the nearby footstool. “I didn’t mean to scare you. How are you finding your accommodations? Comfortable, I hope.”
Sunlight crept into the stable from both ends of the passageway. Reflexively, Jenn turned over her wrist to check the time on her watch, then felt a pang of worry when she remembered that she’d given it to Freddie. Had he and the others made it to safety? Or had they been found and brought back here? Was that why the Major was waking her up? To boast that her plan to save her squadmates had failed?
“They’re terrible. One star.” She kicked the ration bar’s empty wrapper with her heel. “The food sucks, it smells like animals, and the staff are a bunch of murdering psychopaths and criminals.”
There was that laugh again. Was the Major enjoying this? Maybe. He was a sick freak, after all. “I like you. You really do have a great sense of humor.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out another quarter of a ration bar. Jenn’s mouth watered at the sight, and her belly rumbled some more, but she forced herself to turn up her nose at it. She was done taking handouts from him. She’d sooner starve in this cell or die of dehydration. “I’m not hungry.”
“Come on, take it. You need your strength for question-and-answer period later.”
She shuddered at the thought of him hitting her again. “I didn’t need it last night when I killed one of your guys and broke out of here, so I think I’ll be fine.”
Nonplussed, the Major folded the wrapper around the ration bar and slipped it through the cage, laying it on the floor of her cell. “It’s here if you want it.”
“I won’t, but thanks.”
He rubbed his hands and blew into them. “You know what? I realize I never even asked your name. Mine’s Gideon.”
Jenn laughed through her nose. “Gideon? Seriously? I’d stick to the Major, if I was you.”
“Oh, I do.” From his jacket pocket, he pulled out a bottle of water and took a small sip. “Parents were pretty devout Mormons, so they gave me and my three sisters traditional names: Gideon, Ada, Galilee, and Eden. I was the youngest, the baby brother.”
“And let me guess, Daddy unleashed all his rage and frustration on his only son.”
“No, actually. Nothing so clichéd. He was a loving father, but a deadbeat who couldn’t provide for his family. I was thirteen when we moved into the brand-new Scottsdale modular complex, the government’s brilliant solution to a failing economy. We were one of the first families. Six of us, cramped into a shipping container. Five years later, my folks were killed when dear old dad tried standing up to a mugger. It all fell apart after that. Ada died with a needle in her arm. Galilee worked at a brothel until some hopped-up john caved in her skull with a bedside lamp. I never found out what happened to Eden, the oldest. I like to think she got out, married some one-percenter who treated her nice, had a few kids, lived happily ever after.”
Jenn had no sympathy for the man, despite his tragic story. Probably he was lying, anyway, in some sick attempt to garner her trust so she would let her guard down. “Well, that was more than I needed to know, but thanks, I guess.”
From the corner in the passageway, she heard truck doors being slammed shut. Voices, too. What was going on out there? Were the Major’s scouts returning after searching for Freddie? Did they find him?
“So I’ve told you my name and a little bit about myself,” he said. “What about you?”
She pressed her lips together.
“Come on.” He flashed her a smug smile. “This will all be a lot easier if you cooperate. I appreciate you’re stubborn—that’s a good quality, in my opinion—but at some point, you’ve got to realize you’re not in control anymore. You might think I’m a sadist who’s in this just because he gets his rocks off by hurting people, but I’m not. This is about survival. Nothing else.”
“Was it about survival when you were a gangbanger in modular?”
“Especially then.” He set his water bottle between his feet, then clasped his hands together. “I’d have thought you’d be less of an idealist, considering you and your Militia basically sent however many thousands of helpless refugees to their deaths in the desert. That is a seriously heartless thing to do. So heartless, in fact, that me, of all people, is a little shocked by it. So don’t sit there and pretend like you occupy some moral high ground. I might’ve been rolling in the mud before, but we’re both in it now, whether you want to admit that or not.”
The Major’s argument struck an uncomfortable chord. In a way, he was right. The Militia, by establishing the roadblock and sending away the refugees, had probably caused orders of magnitude more deaths than the Major ever would. But there was a difference between him and her. “You’re a criminal,” she said. “We don’t go around stealing people’s stuff.”
He dismissed her with a wave. “You keep thinking whatever you want to think. I’m just trying to help you here. Make this easier, you know? You and me, we’re going to be together for a while, and I’d really like it if we could learn to collaborate or at least be cordial. So why don’t you start with your name?”
She thought about lying but then blurted out, “Jennifer.” Her mean, nasty alter ego, according to Sam. Nothing could have been more appropriate.
“Jennifer, huh?” He unzipped his jacket, revealing a plain white T-shirt. “Well then, Jennifer, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”
“Is that why you’re here? To ask my name? Don’t you have anything better to do? Like deciding how you’re going to handle the Militia showing up here with a hundred troops and a couple combat drones?”
“They won’t be coming here, because we’re leaving. That’s why I came to talk to you. Just wanted to do you the courtesy of giving you the heads up.” He gestured around her cell. “In case you need to get ready.”
Again she heard commotion in the courtyard. Those must be sounds of the Major’s men beginning to pack up their supplies.
“Why leave?” she asked. “I was just starting to get comfortable.”
“Yet you gave your accommodations a one-star rating.”
She didn’t have the energy to explain away the contradiction.
The Major stuffed his water bottle into his pocket and rose from his stool. “It’s a shame, really. This was a good spot. Did us well for a long time. Unfortunately, I can’t risk your friends making contact with the Militia and telling them where we are.”
So Freddie had escaped. Beneath her blanket, Jenn pumped a fist in celebration. There was still hope.
But it quickly faded, transforming into a pit in her stomach. By packing up and moving, the Major rendered Freddie’s intel useless. Even if he made it back to the Militia and told Liam everything he knew about this place, it wouldn’t help; the Major’s crew, along with Jenn, would be long gone.
“You’ve got an hour or so before we leave,” the Major said, then snapped his fingers and pointed at the ration bar. “Eat up. I want my prize hog good and healthy.”
With that, he trudged down the passageway.
She tore off her blanket and threw it across the cell, then gripped her half-empty water bottle so tight she crushed the plastic. Feeling like a caged rat, she tried sliding open her door, but the padlock held it in place. Next, she leaped up and struck the plywood ceiling, earning her scraped knuckles but bringing her no closer to freedom. The ration bar glinted in the morning sunlight. She kicked it away; the thought of accepting anything else from the Major disgusted her to the core.
Exhausted from just that brief exertion of energy, she collapsed into her corner, trying and failing to hold back tears.
Her thoughts turned to Sam, about how worried he’d be. Did he sleep at all last night? What would he do if she never came home? Would he ever be able to move on? What about Gary? Maria? Could they handle losing two daughters in less than a year?
Stop it.
She took a long breath to compose herself, clutching her cross. Val wouldn’t have cried and wouldn’t have given up, so neither would Jenn.
Gideon could do whatever he wanted to her, but as long as her heart pumped blood, she’d continue to fight. That was who she was, who she needed to be. For Sam, for Gary and Maria, for Allison, for her squad. She wasn’t alone. Far from it. There were people who loved her, respected her, and for all she knew, they were out there now, waiting for the opportune moment to strike. She clung to that possibility and let it fill her with courage.
The Major was right about one thing, though—she’d need her strength, just not for the reasons he had in mind. So she swallowed her pride, crawled across her cell, and popped the ration bar into her mouth. As of last night, she’d killed six people. Gideon, she vowed, would be number seven.
* * *
“Another truck pulling into the compound,” Dylan reported. He held a pair of binoculars to his eyes, peering out the window of a second-floor bedroom that rivaled the entire Ruiz house in size. “That makes four now. Looks like they’ve given up searching for you, Parker.”
For the past few hours, Sam and the rest of the team had been reconnoitering Barbary Equestrian from the south, where a subdivision of mansions offered ideal hiding places and excellent vantage points. The house they chose was for sale, Sam assumed, based on the realtor’s sign lying in the front yard, and there were no boards on the doors or windows. It was one of the biggest houses he’d ever been inside, putting Kevin’s in Arcadia to shame. Actually, this mansion was to Kevin’s house what Kevin’s house was to the two-bedroom apartment Sam and Nicole lived in before their parents divorced and their father died. Only when Mom married Kevin did Sam find himself moving up the socioeconomic ladder, from lower middle class to borderline one-percenter.
“What time is it?” he asked, pacing the room.
“Almost 10:30,” Quinn said from near the window, where she, Hawerchuk, Freddie, Yannick, and Dylan had all congregated. To Dylan, she added, “The meet’s in an hour and a half. We’re cutting it pretty close here.”
Dylan continued looking through his binoculars. “Those guards are still on the roof, and their patrol is tight. No blind spots.”
Before grounding the drone to preserve its battery, Dylan snapped a few images of the Major’s base. Sam was no tactician, but he didn’t like what he saw. The place resembled a fortress, with four walls enclosing a central courtyard. Five hundred feet of open ground surrounded the structure, affording a good view in every direction. Sneaking in would be next to impossible, especially in the daylight.
“So what do we do?” Sam asked. “Can we cause some sort of distraction and try to get in that way?”
“That won’t work,” Dylan said. “We can’t give up the element of surprise.”
“Then what? We just sit here and wait around?”
“We’ll think of something.”
Sam balled his hands into fists. He was ready to march into Barbary Equestrian on his own if Dylan didn’t come up with a plan soon.
At the window, Quinn was smiling sympathetically while Freddie tapped his foot on the floor. Aside from Sam, he seemed the most motivated to rescue Jenn.
“Have a seat.” Courtney, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the room, patted a patch of hardwood floor beside her. “Try to relax. I realize that’s not going to be easy, but you’ll feel better if you stop trying to control things you can’t control. Trust me.”
Sam opened his mouth to ask, How can I possibly relax? But Courtney appeared oddly Zen-like as she spun her upside-down helmet around and around. So he forced himself to sit and said, “I’m impressed you’re so chill right now. I thought you would’ve wanted to be working on a plan with Dylan. He could probably use your help.”
She thrust out her bottom lip and shrugged. “I’ve been doing this job long enough to know when not to get in the way. If he wants my input, he knows where to find me.”
Sam’s instinct was to take offense, to be angry that Courtney wasn’t doing more to save Jenn. Yet somehow, he knew she had the best intentions, so he gave her the benefit of the doubt. “So why’d you volunteer for this?” That sounded rude, so he added, “I mean, Dylan said you really wanted to join the team. I didn’t think you knew Jenn very well.”
“I don’t.” She stopped her helmet, then spun it in the opposite direction. “We’ve lost a lot of good people since the bombs. I only met your wife once, when we cleared out that camp and she got hurt, but I could tell she was one of the good ones. I’m not losing her, too.”
Sam held up his hands. “Whoa, wait, she’s not my wife.”
Her mouth twisted to the side. “She’s not?”
“No, just girlfriend.” Again, that word made him cringe. He liked “wife” a lot better.
“Oh, sorry. I figured because she’s Asian and her last name’s Jansen that . . .” She paused, showing Sam a silicone wedding ring. “When people hear Hiroyuki, they assume I’m married. I thought it was the same with you guys.”
“She was adopted.” Sam wondered what had become of Courtney’s husband. He decided not to ask, in case he died in the attacks or she hadn’t heard from him since.
His face must have betrayed his thoughts, though, because she said, “My husband’s fine, by the way. We had a duplex outside the blast zones, and I was off duty when the bombs fell. We got to my unit’s rally point in New River safe and sound the next day. He’s one of the civvies we brought up with us. His name’s Garrett. I’m surprised you two don’t know each other. He was a welder and helps out at the base.”
A knot in Sam’s chest loosened. “I’m glad he’s okay and you guys are still together. And no, I haven’t met him. You’ll have to introduce me when we get back.”
“Will do.” She returned to spinning her helmet. “So why aren’t you and Jenn married?”
Her bluntness took him aback, but when he considered his answer, he couldn’t come up with anything other than, “We’re young. She’s only twenty. I’m turning twenty-two in January.”
“So?”
“So . . .” So what? “I’m not sure. We’ve never really talked about it.”
“You should.
Get married, I mean. You obviously love her, since you wouldn’t be down here otherwise. Garrett and I jumped in with both feet a week after I turned twenty-four. My dad almost had a meltdown, telling us we were too young and not ready and blah-blah, but I’ve had no regrets.”
Sam had thought about marrying Jenn, of course, but he always figured they’d first graduate from college, find jobs, and move into their own place. Now there was no college, they already lived together, and Jenn was a squad leader in the Militia while Sam worked for the Beaumont family. The bombs had accelerated their relationship’s timeline and washed away everything he would have considered an obstacle to marriage, like school, finances, where to live, and so on. Really, they had no reason not to get married. The prospect made him giddy with excitement, yet it also made him miss her more.
He opened his mouth to say, You’re right, but Dylan spoke over him: “Hold on. Something’s going on here.”
“What is it?” Sam scrambled to the window. “What do you see?”
“Three trucks with trailers leaving the facility.”
“They must be headed to the meet,” Courtney said. She hadn’t moved from her spot on the floor.
“That’d be my guess. I’d assume—” Dylan ducked below the sill, and everyone else at the window followed his lead.
“What?” Quinn asked quietly. “What did you see?”
“The stolen Humvee. It’s moving out with another truck and trailer.”
Sam’s pulse quickened. “What about Jenn? Did you see her?”
“No, but they left the front gate wide open, and there’s no more guards on the roof.” Dylan sucked his teeth for a painfully long second. And then, “Get downstairs, unload the drone, and pile into the truck. Now!”
Courtney and Hawerchuk leaped into action. Yannick, Freddie, and Quinn followed a breath later. Sam lingered and stole a glance through the window. A line of vehicles was proceeding west along a two-lane road: three trucks pulling utility trailers in front, the Humvee in the middle, and a fourth pickup, a Tesla, with an enclosed trailer in the rear.