Survivors of PEACE

by T. A. Hernandez

  “How, exactly?”

  “I think there’s already a rift between them. And if I’m right, what happened yesterday probably made it worse. The PRM has only been minimally violent and destructive. Everything they’ve done has been directly related to their opposition against the Republic. They killed a few people when they bombed the government offices here, but I don’t think they meant to. If they had, they would have set the bomb off somewhere else with more people, or later in the day when the rest of the construction crew arrived. I think they just wanted to send a message.”

  “Yes, we’ve established that. So what?”

  “Then there was the hostage crisis. The True PRM broke Ryku out of prison, but they didn’t tell the others that’s what they were doing. They just used them to create a distraction. And they were never going to kill anyone.”

  “The interrogations,” Zira said. She looked at Jared with a spark of understanding in her eyes. “The people we captured repeatedly said they didn’t want to hurt anyone.”

  “Exactly,” said Jared. “The PRM has never deliberately hurt people. They’ve staged protests and attacked buildings and tried to scare people, but they haven’t murdered anyone just for the sake of it. I don’t think they were involved in the attacks yesterday. I think that was just the True PRM.”

  Alma shrugged. “You might be right, but that doesn’t mean any of them will be willing to cooperate with us. And even if they are, what makes you think they know anything about Ryku’s whereabouts?”

  “They probably don’t, but some of them are working with the True PRM. Or they were. They had to at least get the timing of that hostage crisis lined up with Ryku’s escape. If we can get the hostage-takers we captured to reveal who gave them their orders, we might be able to follow the trail back to Mallory or someone in the True PRM who knows where Ryku is.”

  He looked around the room. Skepticism remained in the faces of some of his colleagues, but for others, it seemed hope was starting to take root. They’d suffered a huge loss yesterday, and they were all feeling the pressure to stop something like that from happening again—a feat that seemed almost impossible in light of Ryku’s most recent threats. But they hadn’t given up yet.

  This could work. Jared knew it, and he could see that they were beginning to believe it, too.

  Alma put her hands on her hips and nodded slowly. “Pit them against each other. Okay. Let’s try it.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Zira and Tripp sat beside each other in one of SIO’s cars as it drove them to the correctional institution where they would be questioning a captured PRM hostage-taker named Vera Rhodes. The rest of their team members were on their way to talk to the others, as were several of their other SIO colleagues. Zira had intentionally divided her team so she and Tripp would end up together. It would give them a chance to talk one-on-one—something that hadn’t happened for a while.

  Right now, though, he was focused on the news report playing on the display above the car’s navigation controls. Some of the footage was old, but they’d both missed the immediate aftermath of the bombings in their efforts to help victims at the judicial center yesterday. Ryku’s message—and threat—had been released to the public over the Net just two hours ago. Shortly afterward, Chase and most of the presidential candidates issued a joint statement about standing together in solidarity and asking the public not to let the PRM intimidate them. They expressed their deepest sympathies for loved ones lost and assured everyone that elections would be rescheduled once the immediate threat was resolved and greater security measures were established.

  Zira couldn’t help but roll her eyes a little as she watched them all standing together in front of the capitol building. They’d made some good points, and she wanted to believe the Republic could succeed as much as anyone else did. To be fair, they were only doing what leaders were expected to do in these kinds of situations—exhibit strength, express sympathy, remind people that life could and would go on. But it was hard to rally around their optimism and earnestness when nearly four thousand people had died and thousands more were injured.

  On their way out of the city, they passed a memorial in a park a few blocks away from the judicial center. Flowers, ribbons, and other decorations ran along the sidewalk, which was covered in chalk drawings and messages Zira couldn’t quite make out. A crowd of people gathered with their heads bowed as someone stood on a bench and spoke. One man raised a white flag with a sloppily-painted red X over top of the PEACE Project’s seal.

  At least these people didn’t seem to believe siding with the PRM was the solution.

  She exchanged a glance with Tripp as they left the crowd of mourners behind. His eyes were sad, but he gave her a small, encouraging smile. “We’ll get him.”

  His optimism surprised her. “You sound pretty hopeful.”

  “It’s better than believing the alternative. And statistically speaking, we’re overdue for the odds to work in our favor.”

  “I’m not sure this is about odds.”

  “Part of it has to be. We’ve had one stroke of bad luck after another. It has to stop somewhere.”

  “I hope you’re right. How are you doing with all of this?”

  Tripp cocked his head and gave her a sidelong glance. “I’m guessing what you really want to ask is if I’m having any thoughts of buying heroin from the first dealer I can find.”

  “Well…yes.”

  “Sure. Of course I am.”

  It wasn’t exactly the response she’d been hoping for.

  “Look, kid, even when I was six years clean, there were days I thought about using again. But I’m relearning how to deal with those urges, and I’m getting better at it. Rita, my support group, having a job and a purpose—it all helps. Even the cooking helps.”

  “The cooking helps all of us,” she agreed. He’d become quite the culinary artist over the last few months, and they all enjoyed sitting down to one of his meals at the end of the day.

  Tripp chuckled. “I know I still have to be careful, but my addiction doesn’t control me the way it did before. Besides, I’d never actually be able to do anything with you watching me like an overprotective mother all the time.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You know I’m just looking out for you. Because as much as it pains me to admit this, I do actually care about you.”

  He laughed. “What a touching sentiment.”

  “Just don’t screw it up again, okay? Take care of yourself. I mean it.”

  “I know, kid, I will. And you have my permission to lecture me about it all you want if you see me starting to slip again. But right now, I’m good. Promise.”

  A part of her wanted to tell him how proud she was of him, how impressed she was by the efforts he had made and everything he’d overcome to get sober. But that really would have been too sentimental, and between this conversation and everything that had transpired between her and Jared over the past twenty-four hours, she was starting to feel a lot more emotional than she was comfortable with.

  Instead, she just smiled at him and nodded. “All right, then. Let’s figure out what we want to ask our friend Vera when we get to the prison.”

  * * *

  Four hours later, they sat in a small, drab interrogation room much like the one where Zira had spoken to Ryku several months ago. Vera Rhodes occupied the seat across from them, her slender hands resting on the table in front of her. She looked between Zira and Tripp with cool suspicion. “What can I do for you guys?”

  Zira pulled up her SIO identification on her CL. “We’re with the National Security Department, Special Investigations and Operations. We just want to ask you some questions about the hostage crisis you were involved in.”

  Vera shook her head. “I already told you people everything I’m willing to tell. This is a waste of your time and mine.”

  “Seems to me like you have plenty of time to waste in here.”

  “Whatever. Ask your questions then.”

  �
��We’re looking for information about your PRM leaders, the ones who told you to take all those hostages. Specifically anyone who might have had connections to the True PRM.”

  Vera crossed her arms. “You’re looking in the wrong place. I was just a pawn at the bottom. I was as shocked as everyone else with the way things played out. Definitely wasn’t what I expected.”

  Zira didn’t buy that for a second. Not all of it, anyway. “The PRM wouldn’t have given such an important job to some worthless nobody they didn’t trust. You have to know something.”

  “Go review the vids. You guys recorded everything when you questioned me before, didn’t you? I don’t have anything else to tell you.”

  Tripp leaned forward and spoke to Vera for the first time. His voice was gentle, almost sympathetic. “We’ve watched the vids. As I recall, you were pretty upset when you found out the True PRM was just using you guys in their own plans.”

  “Sure. I don’t like being manipulated.”

  Zira jumped on the potential opening. “This is your chance to get back at them. Whatever information you give us is going to be used to make them pay for what they did.”

  Vera laughed long and loud. The guard standing at the door took a step forward, but Zira shook her head to stop him. She waited, staring at the other woman with a flat expression until she was done.

  Still chuckling, Vera shook her head. “You guys really are as stupid and incompetent as you seem, aren’t you? I’m part of the PRM, remember? You think I care enough about getting even that I’d be willing to turn on everything I believe to help the Republic?”

  Zira started to formulate some biting retort to fling back at her, but Tripp spoke before she could get it out. “We have more in common than you realize.”

  Vera snorted and rolled her eyes.

  “We both want to make this country better for everyone who lives in it. And we don’t want anyone getting hurt in the process.”

  “People get hurt,” the woman growled. “It’s unavoidable, and it’s not going to stop us from fighting. Not you guys, and not the PRM.”

  “You’re right. But neither of us are going to kill thousands of innocent people just to prove our point, either.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and she drummed her fingers against the table for a few seconds before responding. “Is this about what happened yesterday?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re going to have to give me details. I overheard the guards whispering about something, but we don’t get much news in here.”

  Rather than tell her about the bombings, Tripp pulled up yesterday’s news footage on his CL and started to play it for her.

  The guard stepped forward again. “Hey! You’re not authorized to show her that.”

  Zira shot the man a forbidding look. “I believe your supervisor told you to give us your full cooperation.”

  The guard returned her scowl with one of his own, but he stepped back.

  Vera watched as Tripp pulled up footage from bombings in one city after another. Zira stared at the table and tried not to focus on the sound. Memories of the crumbled judicial center, broken bodies, and panicked faces were still too fresh in her mind. Then Tripp pulled up Ryku’s message to the country, and she watched as Vera’s eyes grew wider and wider at every sentence that came out of the former chairman’s mouth.

  Tripp’s voice remained calm as he withdrew the projection and spoke to her again. “Over four thousand people dead. Four thousand, and at least twice that injured. All so Ryku could prove a point. Is that really who you want running this country?”

  “Of course not,” Vera snapped. “We never wanted to put Ryku in power. We just wanted to bring back the PEACE Project the way it was supposed to be—the way it was when they were actually helping people and protecting us. With five chairmen, not one. Some of us even wanted to let people vote for those chairmen, you know. We’re not all terrorists like the Republic makes us out to be.”

  “Then help us,” said Tripp.

  She bit her bottom lip, then shook her head. “The True PRM was wrong to do this, but that doesn’t make the Republic right.”

  “I think we’re a little past the point of debating who’s right here, don’t you?”

  She didn’t answer, but her eyes softened, and she hung her head like she was ashamed. Triumph swelled in Zira’s chest. They had her. It might take a little more prodding, but she was going to tell him everything she knew.

  Tripp waited until she met his gaze to speak again. “We have to find Ryku before he does something like this again. You heard him. He won’t stop until he’s back in power. More people will die—as many as it takes for him to get what he wants.”

  “Okay, fine.” Vera shook her head. “Fine. You’ve made your point. But I’m not sure how much help I can be. I really don’t know much more than what I already told you.”

  “No one’s going to fault you for trying,” Tripp said. “Let’s just start with the person who asked you to take all those hostages.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  The very first thing the following morning, Jared filed into Alma’s office with everyone else who’d spoken to the captured PRM members, eager to find out what they’d all discovered. He and Dodge had only gotten back to Liberation in time to catch a few hours of sleep, so he hadn’t had much of a chance to talk to any of the others about their findings.

  “All right then,” Alma said once they’d all arrived. “Who wants to start?”

  “I will,” Salim replied. “Nova and I managed to get some names from the guy we spoke to—people who were connected to his involvement in the hostage crisis or who gave him orders directly. A couple of them matched up with some of the names Cedric gave us earlier.”

  “Vera Rhodes gave us some names, too,” Zira said. “One of them also matches what Cedric gave us.”

  “Good,” said Alma. “Maybe his intel will be more useful than we thought. Dodge, what did you guys get?”

  “More names, but none of them seem to connect to what we already know. The man we spoke with mentioned meeting Mallory, though. I’m not sure how useful it will be, but we had him put together a composite like the one Cedric did a few weeks back.”

  Jared had studied the image the man had put together long and hard during their travel back to Liberation, but if Mallory was someone he knew, he still couldn’t place her.

  “Show it to everyone once we’re done here,” said Alma. “What did the rest of you find?

  “Just more names,” said a man from another SIO team.

  Josefina and several of the others nodded in agreement.

  “So no one had any idea where Ryku is?” Alma asked.

  They all shook their heads.

  She sighed. “I guess that would be asking too much. Compare the names you got and come up with a complete list. Figure out which ones have the strongest connections to Mallory, Ryku, or the True PRM. It’s time we make some arrests, but only a few, and quietly. The last thing we need to do is make a scene and send Ryku deeper underground.”

  Once they had all exchanged the names they’d gathered and returned to their own workstations, Zira called her team together. “Dodge, show us that composite.”

  Dodge went to his computer to pull up the image, and they gathered around the display to study it. It didn’t look much different from Cedric’s: same scar, dark hair, dark eyes, and square jaw. The features were slightly different, but still not distinguishable—not as anyone Jared recognized, anyway.

  An idea came to him. “Can we combine that with the image Cedric gave us?”

  “Sure, just give me a few seconds.” Dodge pulled up Cedric’s composite and entered a few commands into the program. Both images disappeared, then a single picture materialized on the display.

  The result didn’t bring the instant epiphany Jared had been hoping for. It looked like exactly what it was, a combination of the two images it had been created from. Nothing drastic had changed, but the longer he stared at it, the more h
e began to see something familiar in the woman’s face. The set of her mouth, perhaps, or the slight downturn of her eyes. But maybe that was just the result of staring at the picture for too long; he saw something familiar there because he wanted to, whether it was real or not.

  He looked at Zira, who had her head tilted to one side as she studied the woman’s face with narrowed eyes. “She looks familiar to you, too.”

  Salim’s eyes brightened as he turned to Zira. “You know her?”

  “No. But I feel like I should.” She stared at the image for a few seconds longer, then sighed and shook her head. “It would be so much easier if we had an actual photo of her. I’ll keep thinking about it. Let’s just get back to work.”

  * * *

  The list SIO compiled from their discussions with the PRM hostage-takers had twenty-seven names in all, nine of which matched those Cedric had given them. They prioritized each name based on what they knew about the person’s position in the organization and their connections to the True PRM. Only four targets would be captured and brought in for questioning, and there was some disagreement about who those four people should be. Alma listened to and considered each side’s argument before deciding the matter herself.

  Jared and the rest of Zira’s team would be responsible for capturing the first two targets while a second SIO team took the others. They each sent operatives to their targets’ locations to do surveillance and figure out exactly when, where, and how they were going to bring them in. Salim and Josefina went from Zira’s team and sent back daily updates over the next week, which were used to plan and coordinate a strategy.

  Once everything had been planned and evaluated to Alma’s satisfaction, she gave the order for them to proceed. The operation was scheduled to take place at night when most of their targets would be at home asleep. The morning before, Jared and Zira loaded everyone’s gear into the van they’d be taking to the airport before boarding separate flights to their respective destinations. He would be going to the South Atlantic region with Dodge and Josefina while Zira, Nova, and Salim headed to the North Pacific region. Completely opposite sides of the country.