River of Night

by John Ringo

  “Uh-uh-uh, Governor,” Tom said warningly. “You don’t get to talk yet. Just ever so slightly nod if you understand about the vest.”

  Green’s head barely moved.

  “Good, now do it.”

  The vest thumped to the ground and Tom continued to talk Green through losing his belt, and emptying his pockets. He ran his hand up Green’s inseam, squeezing the prisoner’s crotch and then down the opposite inseam. He ended by having the man very slowly turn around, hands interleaved on his head.

  They locked eyes, and without warning, Tom used a bladed hand to deeply jab Green’s abdomen, just below the point of the xiphoid process. Green bent, gasped and fought his paralyzed diaphragm for a breath. Tom struck again, his stiffly cupped hand coming from underneath to fork Green’s neck, making the Gleaner involuntarily stop choking and arch his back. Green’s hands fluttered like birds at his own throat.

  “So, you enjoyed killing us off one at a time?” Tom asked, batting Green’s hands to the side with a quick left-right motion, before firmly grasping the Gleaner by his right elbow. “You wanted to meet the guy in charge? Well, here you are. My name is Smith, late of Australian Special Air Service and formerly chief of security for Bank of the Americas.”

  Green just goggled at him.

  “I was under the impression that an erudite fellow like yourself would be aware of the Special Air Service and its reputation. No?”

  Tom straightened his arm, raising Green’s arm above his head and pinning it to the very tree where Rune had sheltered. Tom was so angry that he shook slightly, and the Gleaner vibrated in Tom’s grip, barely supporting his weight on his toes. Little rasping sounds started as he recovered from the blow to his throat, allowing him more air.

  This brought them face-to-face, and they shared bad breath laden with the by-products of exertion, fear and rage.

  “Whoa, mate,” Tom averted his head slightly. “You really need to floss…Wait.”

  Tom paused and considered the arm that he was pinning against the tree. The light from the dam was striking highlights from a collection of thin, woven bracelets. Tom twisted the arm a bit, turning it back and forth before the objects snapped into focus. They were circlets of hair, in various shades. As he watched, they slid downwards, bunching up on the thickest part of Green’s forearm.

  “Is that…is that human hair?” Tom asked, puzzled. Then he got it.

  “Does that terrify you?” Green said, his voice rasping unevenly but arrogantly.

  “Nooo…” Tom growled dangerously. “Clarifies some shit that I’ve heard about you. Pussies keep trophies. Professionals just do the job and go have breakfast.”

  “Professionals are overrated,” Green said, struggling to free himself from the viselike grip. “I cleared two dozen towns and I’m rebuilding civilization. What have you done, besides kiss the ass of your Wall Street masters?”

  “Who’s dangling who in the air, Green?” Tom said, slapping him with nearly the full force of his arm. “Hold still, unless you want to start bleeding prematurely.”

  Tom hooked the RMJ over the clump of trophies and yanked upwards, using the sharpened inner edge of the weapon to sever the bracelets, letting them fall to the ground.

  “No!” Green cried, ignoring the oozing, shallow slit in his forearm and redoubling his efforts to free himself and recover the lost bracelets.

  Tom slapped him briskly, forehand and backhand. Slapping was simply an ad hoc prisoner control method. Yep.

  Definitely not because he felt like it though. Nope, just keeping the prisoner subdued.

  “Can we get a move on?” Rune asked from behind him. “How long were you standing there, listening?”

  “Had to make certain this arsehole was alone,” Tom said, briefly noting that his own respiration was accelerating, becoming deeper and faster. “Give me a moment, Paul.”

  He reconsidered Green, still pinned to the tree trunk. “You. You’re nothing but a stain that’s been plaguing me for a fair bit. Thanks to you, friends of mine are dead. Thanks to you, my girlfriend is a prisoner in my own camp. And now, I’m in a wrathful mood.”

  “Smith, no, wait,” Green gasped.

  “Something you want to add, you piece of shit? You want to admit your guilt? Confess that you’re ashamed?”

  “Ashamed? Shame is for people that don’t live up to what they can be!” Green said, his voice hoarse with pain. “Look at what I’ve accomplished, the towns I’ve liberated from the Plague, the roads I’ve cleared. I’m not making the mistakes of the old system. I’m making something new! With this dam, I can do even more, enough power to make a new beginning. I’m proud—”

  “And no,” Tom said, cutting him off. “Bo-ring. By the way, if that was the start of your monologue, it was weak. I’ve heard Indonesian Jemaah-Islamiyah shite-eaters using English as a second language who did a better job on rhetoric and strophe—ah, no, no!”

  Tom swung the flat of the tomahawk and broke the Gleaner’s wrist just as Green attempted to reach one ankle. Green’s boot knife thudded to the leaf litter at their feet.

  “Fuck!” Green said, grunting and grimacing. “Fuck you, you barbarian! This is how you show that you’re better than me?”

  “Not better than you,” Tom continued, bouncing the RMJ in his right hand. “Wrathful. But now I’ve got wounded to attend to and professional responsibilities. We’ve got a great murthering battle still going on and I’m not abandoning my friends. I don’t have time to properly discharge my wrath. I could kill a half dozen of you with my bare hands and it wouldn’t be enough. It’s like…Marmite and crisps. I could chew on you all night.”

  “So…you’re going to just let me go?” Green said, unable to keep the hope out of his voice. “Bygones be bygones and all that?”

  “Oh, fuck no,” Tom replied, smashing the flat of the tomahawk against the arm he was holding.

  Green started to scream shrilly. Instead of simply being suspended midair by a mostly intact arm he was now suspended in the air by a broken elbow.

  “Wrath-ful,” Tom said carefully. “W-R-A-T-H-ful. Wrathful. I’d say look it up, but you won’t really be given the opportunity.”

  Tom swung and buried his tomahawk in the tree next to his prisoner’s head. Green flinched automatically, and Tom let the man fall forward far enough to pull the Gleaner’s head into his chest.

  He braced both hands and squeezed hard.

  “If…I…can…just…” Tom said, grimacing in effort. “I know it’s nearly impossible to crush a fresh skull with your hands. They’re too flexible. But…”

  * * *

  Harlan Green kicked ineffectually at the monstrously strong former SAS officer. He’d have created what were termed “defensive wounds” in the forensic world but now he had compound open fractures of the left wrist and right elbow. Scratching was out. As he was twisted back and forth as helplessly as a baby, the pressure on his head caused him to first whimper in pain and then scream, as deep in his heart something bloomed for the first time: an honest fear he’d never really experienced. He might actually…die.

  * * *

  “Tom,” Rune said weakly. “Tom. Green is shit, but you’re not. Kill him and be done.”

  “He needs more!” Tom said, through a curtain of red. He tried a tournament-disapproved variation of krav maga, causing Green to switch from screams to an inarticulate keening. “I have more to let out.”

  “I’ve seen enough bad things that people do to each other, Tom, and it’s all ugly,” Rune replied, his voice now raspy with pain. “Kill him. Besides, I’m bleeding here. Getting shot really hurts.”

  Tom angrily grunted in precisely the manner of an irritated silverback gorilla. A last hammer fist flattened Green’s nose to his face. After a moment’s thought, Tom dropped Green to the ground and looked left and right, seeking inspiration. He looked at Rune again. Paul was starting to shiver. At Tom’s feet, the battered and terrified Gleaner commander had curled into a fetal ball, trying to master his
own pain and fear. There was no punishment that Tom could levy against the man that could possibly balance the Gleaner’s crimes.

  Trying to balance Green’s actions with the suffering that Green deserved would only serve to smear that evil on Tom’s own hands. Tom knew that he didn’t have time for reflection, not now. Even so, several of the hardest decisions that he’d made rose in his memory, unbidden.

  His own blood-drenched hands processing the very first infected human that he had captured for the bank.

  Staring into Durante’s eyes and then leaving his mortally wounded teammate to stall the Gleaners’ advance.

  Shooting police and FBI agents that had been driven mad by the slaughter of their families.

  Getting mousetrapped by Kohn, enduring her lecture as she explained how she’d visit sorrow on all that Tom held dear if he broke her deal to free the dam.

  Tom’s eyes widened.

  Kohn.

  Her deal with Captain Dominguez. The deliberate infection of the cops’ families at One Police Plaza in New York City.

  Kohn.

  And the bitch was holding Risky hostage while Tom did even more dirty work for her.

  He shook himself again, mentally and physically, becoming aware that he was breathing like a bellows. The bloody, rocking ball of diseased humanity at his feet was the sideshow. The true enemy, Tom’s real problem, was the spider at Site Blue, and every minute Tom spent here strengthened Kohn’s hand.

  He didn’t have time for Green, not anymore. He had somewhere to be.

  Only ten meters distant lay the edge of the same cliff where Tom had begun his earlier, very deep, unplanned descent.

  “Perfect,” Tom said, before adding for Rune’s benefit. “I’ll be right there, Paul. Just a short chore.”

  He dragged Green almost all the way over to the edge before picking him up. A few steps later, he propped up the formerly haughty man, letting him teeter at the very edge of the precipice, bleeding from multiple wounds.

  Tom paused with his hands bunched on the bloody lapels of Green’s camouflage jacket, letting the wobbly man get a good look over his shoulder at the churning water below.

  “I’ve got things to do, Green, and I doubt that your victims were ever afforded such a chance,” Tom said matter-of-factly, pitching his voice to carry over the dwindling gunfire at the dam, “but I’m going to let you die quickly. I’m not going to do anything spectacular, or save you for trial and execution. Nothing that would memorialize your name. You’re going to die unmourned, unimportant and unwitnessed. I’m going to erase your organization. Then I’m going to forget that you ever existed. And so will everyone else.”

  “But wait, we— I—” Green began but then Tom gave him a sharp push.

  Tom heard a brief, thin wail, the sound of some rocks banging together and then a loud splash.

  Below, the current snatched the maimed Gleaner leader and pulled him under.

  There was no audience when less than a minute later, the dam’s return loop downstream was once again discolored, if only for a moment, belching out a well-mulched corpse. In seconds, the remains of Green mingled anonymously with the polluted river water. The baitfish swarmed and the birds’ cries sounded grateful.

  CHAPTER 22

  “That went very well,” Joanna said, looking down at her notes. “Are we agreed, Ken?”

  “Better than I expected Miss Kohn,” Schweizer answered. Joanna detected the merest hint of truculence in his tone. “But I wonder if we shouldn’t start Miss, pardon, Specialist Astroga out small and work up to full trust.”

  “Of course,” Joanna answered pertly. “I tested her by requesting that she perform some basic, even menial administration duties, and suggested that rapid promotion was possible. She is going to be straightening some of the offices later. Unarmed, of course.”

  “Of course, Miss Kohn,” her man replied, standing tall in front of her desk. “And the others? I still think that Randall is a question.”

  “His technical communications knowledge is still valuable,” she said. “But we should remain alert to opportunities to add to that specialty, just in case something should happen to him. However, with luck, that will not be necessary. My meeting with his superior was productive.”

  “Did Sergeant Copley accept your authority, Miss Kohn?”

  “He did not reject it, Ken,” Joanna replied. “And he seemed persuadable given the truth, which is that I am the seniormost government official that has survived so far, discounting the desperate impostors that have broadcast on the radio.”

  “The flag behind your desk was a nice touch,” Schweizer said, looking at the red, white and blue colors that stretched nearly the width of Joanna’s office wall.

  “Soldiers adore symbols,” she answered. “Like Smith, they swore an oath, only in this case, to a constitution. Whether Smith succeeds or fails at the dam, I have planted the idea that these soldiers owe allegiance to their country, not a Wall Street has-been. By the time Smith returns, if he returns, the seed of doubt that I am planting about the true direction of their duty will suffice to sever their direct obedience to Smith. And of course, if they should fully join our organization, they will be useful symbols for such new recruits as we gather.”

  “Yes, ma’am. And Smith’s woman?”

  “Khabayeva will get her chance to decide, as well. Please set up the office for a special interview, say, well after evening curfew. We will want to avoid witnesses, just in case she chooses poorly.”

  * * *

  “What did she offer you?” Randall asked Worf.

  It wasn’t a casual question.

  Kohn had talked with Worf for almost an hour, probing him for the history of the group’s escape, about Smith’s decisions and about the long-term goals of the camp. She hadn’t offered him a job, exactly, but she’d made it plain that accepting her leadership as a government representative would work out a lot better for Worf than if he stayed loyal to Smith.

  Worf had coached Randall to scrape off their guard outside, leaving him to smoke in the gravel lane that ran along the “street” of housing unit (“no smoking around the radios, see?”) while they enjoyed some privacy in the comms CHU. Though their separate meetings with Kohn had been hours earlier, this had been their first chance to talk without Astroga, and Astroga had become a question.

  “Kohn didn’t make an offer, Gunner,” Worf replied, stretching in his chair and looking at the radio rack. “She just reminded me about my oath of service and that she was the last known government official that anyone knew about.”

  “I’m not worried about you, Worf,” Randall said, snapping and unsnapping the catch on his sheathed kukri. “I’m worried about Astro. She was in with Kohn longer than either of us, and came out whistling like she just got laid before disappearing for an hour. Then she waltzes in here with a camp guard and ratfucks the desk for admin supplies.”

  “Did she say what she wanted them for?”

  “Something about doing admin for the ‘new boss,’” Randall answered, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “Worries me. I know that she’s junior as hell, she’s young, and Kohn is a good talker.”

  “Astroga is solid, Gunner,” Copley said. “You didn’t see her in the last three months. She’s shot the shit out of the Gleaners and the infected, she’s been shot and she’s been a loyal troop. I’m more worried about Risky.”

  “You mean Smith’s girlfriend?” Randall replied. “Rowf!”

  “Lock it up, Randall!” Copley snapped. “Yeah, Tom Smith’s girlfriend. The one that Kohn is using as leverage. She’s live ordnance and she’s not going to wait to be saved. Kohn won’t do anything permanent until Smith gets back. But then, we gotta be ready to back Risky’s play.”

  “So what’s the play?” Randall asked. He stopped fiddling with his big knife and leaned forward intently. “What do we do? Do we wait for Smith to come back? Do we guard the common frequency? Do we soldier for Kohn in the meantime?”

  “What does
any good NCO do when there is thinking to be done and shit details to avoid?” Copley asked. “Let’s get some coffee and keep our ears spread.”

  * * *

  When Tom had entered the dam compound with Rune over his shoulder in an uncomfortable fireman’s carry, he’d noted the bodies that lay outside the powerhouse, covered with jackets and blankets. Compared to the literal heaps of dead infected that began only a few dozen meters from the walls, they were a tiny number, but the little cluster represented pain that Tom wouldn’t process until he had more time. He simply added it to the list and felt his anger build anew.

  Inside, the glad cries and excitement generated by his return had briefly overcome the dismal stink of gunsmoke, blood and charred meat.

  Robbins was their primary medic and he’d immediately started an IV on Rune, who was now lying on his side, hoarsely complaining as his bullet wound was packed in preparation to move him, and the other seriously wounded, to Spring City. However, Tom noted that Rune had energy enough to lead the argument against Tom’s plan as soon as Tom had explained the next steps.

  “Tom, at least wait until morning,” Rune said from the tabletop where Robbins had improvised an aid station. “Site Blue will be there in the morning, after you’ve gotten some sleep.”

  “Kohn has Risky,” Tom said, looking up as he reloaded magazines and stuffed them into a replacement plate carrier. “And I’m not waiting until morning to get her back. You, of all people, know the why.”

  “I’ll bite,” Kaplan said. “Why not wait? Everyone’s tired, the defenses are shot to shit and we have dead and wounded.”

  “Kohn gave me an impossible task and threatened to kill Risky if I don’t do exactly as she says,” Tom explained, as he slid another full mag into his vest. “But I think that she might not wait for that. Remember Dominguez?”

  “Who’s that?” Robbins asked, tightly taping down a dressing on Rune, to the accompaniment of a pained grunt.

  “Precinct captain in New York,” Kaplan said offhand, the expression on his face clearly suggesting that he was thinking back to the operations of the vaccine cartel that Tom himself had organized. “Dominguez represented the cops in the unofficial vaccine cartel that we organized. Four players: Ding for the PD, Matricardi for the mob, Smith for the banks and Joanna Kohn for the city council. Ding and the rest of the cops went nuts and starting killing everyone after the Jamaican Queens gang put a hit on their kids inside the cops’ own safe zone.”