“Yeah,” He seemed to zone out into his own personal thoughts for a moment. “This was supposed to be about tactics, remember?” It was a cue for her to start talking.
“They react to stimuli,” Maggie accessed her professional tone. “Provide it.”
“How?” The notepad appeared again.
“We saw how they reacted to jets landing.” Maggie had a flashback to Pearson that turned into other moments in the last five years of her life. It left her in a second, but a warped sensation remained that left her uneasy. “In my experience, they react the same way to any human sounds, gunfire, voices, vehicles, it’s all the same.”
“Speaking of experience,” Roberts asked offhandedly. “What was your experience in the United States Army? Where did you serve?”
Maggie paused and felt the muscles in her eyes tighten. The fight or flight feeling inside her rose. She wanted to grab him, hit him and run away at the same time. You have a monster inside you now. She realized and tried to remember how Finerman told her to control rising moments of ferocity. Maggie took a slow breath and lowered her head in thought to buy time. If Maggie cut him off, he wouldn’t trust what she was saying. Her inward thoughts remained caged up as Maggie answered. “I served in the battle of Chicago and its’ evacuation.”
“You got to see them up close?” He was like most civilians, curious about the most terrifying parts of her business.
“Yes, very close.” Maggie replied as she swallowed.
“So you saw a lot of combat?” Roberts probed further. If you’re so curious about this war thing, Maggie wanted to scream. Why don’t you fucking join up and find out for yourself? Maggie knew it was that monster inside her again. Like Roberts, it was probing for a weakness. Maggie gave a tired smile and she looked at the ground.
“I have had a lot of combat experience from Chicago and elsewhere with these things.” Maggie looked up and began to explain. “I have learned a great deal about them and beaten them once or twice.”
“Yes?” He was all ears now.
“I just don’t want to talk about what happened in Chicago.” Maggie felt herself searching for words to convey dark emotions that Roberts might not understand. “Don’t make me go back there. It brings back a lot of …..really bad baggage.”
“I’m sorry,” Tom’s face reacted in surprise for a moment as he apologized. “I didn’t mean to…..”
“I know,” Maggie touched his arm and it silenced him instantly. “I just want to tell you what I have learned, but I just don’t want to go back there.”
“Of course,” he retreated into listening mode.
“Like I said, they react to stimuli,” Maggie softened her voice. It was so Roberts would listen and she could calm herself. Fighting her gathering temper felt like a forever war after Chicago. “We just have to provide stimuli for them to follow.”
“Give me an example.”
“If you want to move them, how about flying drones or helicopters over their position, they would probably follow.” Maggie explained as they started walking again. “It might be an easy way to get back some territory.”
“Fuel is very expensive.” Tom replied.
“It is, sir.” Maggie agreed. “But, I would hate to see us lose all of this because we wanted to save a few bucks.”
He nodded as they approached the courthouse. They passed an old oak tree on their left that had been around since the 1919 flu epidemic. It was a mute testament that some things will always survive. Maggie had a chance to look at him for a second while he was pre-occupied with his thoughts. You really are listening aren’t you? Maggie’s anxiety backed down a bit.
“I have this problem talking to people on the hill,” he suddenly turned and caught her staring at him. She retreated with an averted look. “They wonder why we keep getting defeated by a bunch of meat bags.”
“Because they aren’t meat bags, sir,” Maggie looked back at him to make a point.
“In your experience, what are they?” He framed the question to stay away from her memories of Chicago. He wants information, he’s not prying. She tried to tell herself. Maggie paused to collect the last five years into her thoughts before speaking.
“I have learned not to underestimate them. They have no fear. They keep attacking and do not surrender. In short, they just keep coming long after our ammunition has run out. They are beyond our realm of comprehension.” Maggie took a breath and looked back at the Oak tree for inspiration. “They can smell us from a mile away if the wind is right.” She added in an almost poetic tone. “They are very social.”
“Social?” The humanity of the word seemed almost absurd.
“They seem most at home when they are in packs.” Maggie explained with memories and tattered faces tugging at her emotions. The singular form on her drive to Orangeville stuck out, Lonely, lost all by itself. “The more there are of them, the more confident they seem to attack.”
“It’s like they are wolves.” Roberts tried to grasp what she was saying.
“Wolves is a good description, sir.” Maggie agreed. But she paused before adding cautiously. “But, they seem to be a lot smarter than we give them credit for.”
“Thank you,” Roberts nodded to her. This was clearly something he could use. A synaptic tripwire seemed to be triggered by looking at her. “Oh, I almost forgot. I have something for you. It’s an envelope that arrived from the United States.”
“Is it from my sister?” Maggie was perplexed at the news as she walked up the concrete stairs to the court house.
“No, it was from the Pentagon.” He eyed her carefully for a reaction. “They wanted me to give it to you personally.”
“Did you open it?” Poker face back on. “Was it a letter or something?”
“I’m not in the business of reading other people’s letters, Maggie.” He assured her, although she still seemed to have her doubts. “It’s just an envelope with something inside, that’s all.”
“Okay, thank you.” She tried to smile pleasantly. It felt like unfamiliar emotional territory.
“I do have one question,” Tom spoke after a pause. He seemed unsure how to put it. “If you don’t want to answer it, you don’t have to.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Maggie parlayed while crossing her arms.
“One minute Otto Jay is giving the Prime Minister a landing vector…..”
“Breaking our deal?” She faced him with glittering ferocity in her eyes. You fuckers are all alike.
“Whoa, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.” She stared him down while he calmly continued: “One minute Otto Jay is giving the Prime Minister a landing vector, the next minute, we are told to clear out.”
Maggie planted her feet firmly as her eyes burned like a bonfire. Was this a trap? She listened to the wording carefully, examining the sentence for any hint of danger. Who are you, Mr. Roberts? What kind of world do you live in?
“I’m just asking,” Tom held a hand up peacefully. “Did everything happen that fast?”
“No.” Maggie spoke so suddenly she surprised herself. “He was calling the PM’s plane in while the place was being overrun.”
“Why?” He whispered. Roberts was momentarily stunned at the information, was that it? Maggie suspected he might be applying this bit of intelligence to something he already knew. There was a spark in his mannerisms, a suspicion.
“If the PM landed at Pearson, he was dead.” Maggie laid it out as they were closer to the courthouse. “There is no way he was getting out.”
Tom’s reply was silence. Maggie looked into his eyes and swore that he was starting to grasp what she was saying. He was a man in many meetings and much information passing over his desk. She could see it work around inside him like a knife. A rumor, a threat from somewhere was making sense in what she was saying.
“Okay.” His mouth became terse.
“Since he is a leader, it’s safe to say this was perhaps an assassination attempt.” Maggie tried to see deep
er into his soul. His eyes had taken on an attentiveness that she had not seen before. This was about something else, something someone else had said. It was making sense.
“Why?” Tom asked. The word was choreographed. You already know why. Maggie was sure of that. But, she played along.
“Jay didn’t do this. He got his orders from somewhere else.” Maggie continued. “Remember what you said? It was a purely military decision to give him the command.”
“Yes,” Tom’s reply was somber. He doesn’t like where this is going.
“Other people put him up to this.” Maggie was standing at the court house door now. Her voice was low. “Other people who are higher up in the military and perhaps in your government were pulling the strings.”
“If that’s true, how was he going to escape?” Tom had finally recovered to try a bit of denial.
“He wasn’t supposed to escape. He’s the patsy.” Maggie replied without a second to think. “The people who put him up to this were gonna leave him there to die with the Prime Minister. They didn’t need him anymore.”
“Do understand what you are talking about?” Tom leaned forward. His eyes were wider than she had ever seen them.
“Do you understand what I’m talking about, sir?” Maggie looked at him hard with a low voice. “This could have been an opening move to a coup-d’état.”
Tom looked away for a minute. It was like he had just been slapped in the face by a thousand different random conversations that had arrived at one location. Until now this had all probably been like a few errant suspicions and dark rumors floating through the hallways of power. It was like climbing out of a valley of self deception and seeing the looming threat for the first time. Maggie watched him piece it all together with a strange sense of curiosity and empathy. He must be feeling shocked, stunned and apprehensive for the future. It’s called fight or flight. Mr. Roberts. I know all about that. Maggie finished up their conversation:
“While your thinking about that. Consider this, sir. The people who planned this are still around. They are still in positions of power and you know they are gonna try again.”Maggie reached up to the courthouse entrance and pulled the door open.
She turned to Tom and politely said: “After you, sir.”
Tom said nothing as he entered the courthouse. The hallways seemed a million miles away and infinitesimal. Carefully, he was flipping through the faces of everyone he worked with on Parliament Hill. It suddenly occurred to him how little he really knew about them.
ARMAGEDDON
It was good to travel by train at night. The blackness hid the scenery, a reminder of how large the country was and how few people he had to protect it. The comfortable VIA rail first-class section had taken a step down during the war years. Still, it was impressive.
Tom Roberts declined a second glass of wine and instead asked for a carafe of coffee. This was going to be a long night of reports. He tried his best to stay above the constantly shifting sands of information that flowed into Ottawa from all provinces. Most were requests for more troops. Then came the appeals for supplies and food. At this time the government had little to offer her provincial partners but good wishes. This created angry responses which turned into even more reports.
Tom glanced through two studies that almost made him snort out loud in disgust. Pro-gun lobbyists demanding the government place the right to bear arms in the Canadian constitution, thereby eliminating background checks and waiting periods for handguns. The report claimed many lives would have been saved if Canada had American-style gun laws in place when the dead rose.
Really, Tom smiled inwardly. I wasn’t aware the Americans had any kind of gun laws, strange how the report failed to mention that every country in the world had suffered about the same loss of population percentage-wise.
The next report was from an anti-gun lobby that claimed many of the casualties caused by the dead rising originated from gun nuts shooting first and asking questions later. Neither side was telling the truth; neither side was lying. They both seemed to exist in a myopic grey area of twisted logic and facts. Roberts sighed and tossed both reports aside. The gun problem had been solved in purely Canadian fashion. Everyone had one. The only time a license was requested by the authorities was in a case of threat or violence to another person. Besides, it was a great way of detaining citizens for further questioning. When queried on the subject, the government would say they were looking into the issue. Problem went away. Problem solved.
He briefly thought of Corporal Maggie Hunter. She had saved more than a few lives recently and he had gladly put in papers for her promotion. His curiosity about her was piqued in several areas at once. They popped into his head in unison before he started to address each one in turn.
He did not open the envelope, so he had told Maggie the truth. But he was aware of its contents. The envelope from the Pentagon had contained the Silver Star. It was one of the American military’s highest honors. However, it was delivered without pomp or ceremony. It was sent almost as an after-thought or grudging apology. Stranger still, the U.S Vice President had caught wind of what happened at Pearson and had expressed an interest to meet the soldier who had guided his plane and that of the UN Secretary-General to safety.
As soon as Maggie’s name had been mentioned, the request was quietly dropped. The whole reversal hadn’t seemed to come from the VP’s office. It appeared to be from the Pentagon or Congress. Either way, just a day later, the Vice President had acted as if the request had never been made.
Tom had always regarded himself to be a good judge of character. He had after all been a very successful businessman in private life. He didn’t doubt Hunter would be a capable and gifted commander. Trust was the word that kept coming back to him every time her name came up. It was a touch inspiring. That was a hard thing to be after several years in Ottawa. It truly was a place where the mud of mediocrity and self-interest had weighed down the wings of more than one soaring eagle.
Still, there was darkness in her. It wasn’t something you could put in a report or anything official. But it was there. It was something she had seen, done or experienced in her past. The scars were so huge you could feel them. They were in the tone of her voice and they were as sharp as flint in her eyes. She had said she was a Lieutenant in the US. He did not doubt her and no one south of the border was talking.
Her tactical suggestions were practical and creative. He loved the idea of slow-moving helicopters and drones. Manmade noises were a stimulus that the ghouls most often reacted to. This would offer a chance to move them around without putting a single boot on the ground and in harm’s way. An idea he would broach with his commanders in Ottawa. Her other observations had chilled him, what was once a casual rumor passed off as hallway talk had just manifested itself. He closed the file he was reading for a second and pondered the last day or two.
Tom had a very strong feeling that Hunter had either killed Jay or knew who pulled the trigger. But the PM’s staff seemed almost disinterested in Jay’s fate. He would be given the usual state funeral. The words from the podium would detail his success and be forgetful of his failures.
The salutes would be made and the men in the black coats who were in power would walk away from his grave, wiping their hands free of any dirt, deception or deals.
Tom had not liked Jay, but he found him very easy to control. He was like a bull with ADHD. He would come charging into the PM’s office with a grandiose scheme, speak to the press about it at an impromptu news conference on the steps of an important-looking building and the media stampede would be started. The trick was to entice Jay a few weeks after the start of his crusade with an interesting bit of information or even gossip. This would prompt him to go charging off in another completely different direction. Leaving Tom and his staff to quietly close up the project he had been so enthusiastic about just weeks earlier.
If his five years in Ottawa had taught him anything, he knew that a good idea needed to be more than practical
. It had to have the strong headwind of popular support before it was bogged down at the legislative level. It would then be watered down by debate and compromise, finally signed into law a shadow of its former self.
“Do you need anything else, sir?” The attendant asked politely as she placed the carafe of coffee on his table.
“Yes, might I have a word with the engineer?” His voice was low and calm.
“Right this way, sir.” She began to walk slowly toward the front of the car.
He had thought it would take some time to fill that request. It was obvious he was starting to be recognized among the crew as an advisor to the Prime Minister. At least, that’s what he thought he was. These days, titles seemed like nothing. They only mattered to the meaningless of Ottawa’s mandarins.
As he stepped between cars it occurred to Tom how noisy a train really was. It was a testament to the engineering of the first-class cars. It was also a major issue for him now that Maggie had put the bug in his ear. He didn’t for a minute think that any number of these ghouls could stop a train. But, the noise could be the guidance to the train’s final destination. It was unquestionable that it would take time for the hostiles to arrive. But when they did it would be in overwhelming numbers.
“You wanted to see me, sir?” The engineer was tough-looking, a squat, barrel-chested man of sixty with an engineer’s cap covering a bald head. His eyes narrowed at the approach of anyone in a suit and tie.
“Do you mind if we lose the whistle at crossings when we near Ottawa and enter the station?” Tom asked. The engineer raised his head and tilted it slightly to the right. It was a clear question mark.
“But we could hit someone at the crossings,” the engineer warned. It was standard policy to use the whistle as a warning. The rule went farther back than either man’s lifetime.
“I understand,” Tom countered calmly. “I don’t think many folks are going be out joyriding at night these days.”
5 Years After Page 10