EMPowered- America Re-Energized

by Diane Matousek Schnabel

  He eased the door open farther. Stainless steel gurneys and cabinets lined the perimeter, and in the center, a man in a white lab coat hovered over a sheet-draped body. His pale skin and silver hair blended into the cold, lifeless feel of the room.

  Sensing Bradley’s presence, he wheeled around and hitched the sheet up over her head.

  “Can I help you, Son?” he asked, peering above round-rimmed glasses.

  “I ... I just need a minute to say good-bye to my wife.”

  “You can’t be in here. Now, I’m genuinely sorry for your loss, but if you don’t leave, I’ll have to call the MPs.”

  Bradley hadn’t come this far to be turned away. Quitting and failure were not in a Marine’s lexicon. Impulsively, his balled fist coldcocked the little man.

  As his stocky frame bounded against the floor, a voice inside Bradley asked, “What the hell are you doing?”

  It was quickly overruled; he’d already taken things too far.

  He lugged the presumed medical examiner into the hallway, locked the door, and barricaded it with a stainless steel cabinet; then chest tightening, he pulled back the white sheet.

  Abby’s face looked worse than on the video, variegated shades of purple and red, sunken flat as if her skull no longer existed. Her mouth still hung open and he could see that all her teeth had been sheared off, even the molars.

  Breathing unevenly, Bradley’s fingers slid beneath the sheet, along her arm, reaching for her hand.

  The hairs at the nape of his neck prickled.

  Acid crept up his throat.

  He wrenched back the sheet and his teeth ground together.

  Abby’s hands were gone, lopped off at the wrist.

  He shuddered under the strain, dangerously angry, on the brink of losing control; then a ludicrous question began whispering in his mind.

  38

  Stone Reservoir, Idaho

  THE VOICE BELONGED to an unarmed, masculine figure, six feet tall with a bushy crown of flaming red hair. Sybil sat motionless in the saddle, debating whether ma’am or sir would be appropriate.

  “Sorry. I didn’t know they were yours,” Izzy said, inserting the fish back into the trap.

  “Well, you knew they didn’t belong to you.” Head cocked to the side, the stern expression transmuted into bewilderment. “You’ve got a rifle, Boy. Isn’t this the part where you threaten to shoot me and steal my fish?”

  “No, sir.”

  “It’s ma’am!” she snapped indignantly. “And what are you kids doing out here, anyways?”

  “I’m Sybil. This is Izzy. We’re on our way to Salt Lake City, and we’re warning people about the UW peacekeepers. It’s all here in my journal.”

  “Nancy Hart,” she said with a bob of her head. “And I know darn well what those snakes are capable of.”

  “Then you should record what happened.” Sybil presented her leather-bound journal, but Nancy’s cracked and calloused hand waved it away.

  “Might as well swap tales over breakfast,” she said. “Izzy, you have a knife to clean those fish?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good, get to work. Sybil, you scrounge up some dried branches for a fire, and I’ll be right back.”

  Nancy returned with matches, four bricks, a large metal can missing its label, a cast iron skillet, and what looked like a handful of weeds. She lit the fire then poured a glop of salvaged grease from the can, a brown-speckled sludge, something between liquid and solid. She used the bricks to prop the frying pan above the flames and seasoned the fish with fresh herbs—the best food Sybil had tasted in a year.

  While they ate, Izzy enumerated the horrors of District Ten. “... But before we left, I hit them back,” he said proudly. “There were two dozen UW trucks in the hospital parking lot, and I cut the valve stems off every tire!”

  “That’s what you were doing?” Sybil asked. “Why didn’t you let me help?”

  “I just needed to do it myself,” he said, dodging the fact that he was probably bawling the entire time. “Some antiwar activist did that to my dad’s car once. Man, was he mad. Had to take the tire completely off the rim to fix it.” Izzy’s vengeful little smile broadened. “I may not be able to fight the UW head-on, but I can be a gigantic thorn in their side!”

  Nancy dumped more grease into the skillet for the second batch of fish. “You are a courageous little thing, aren’t you?”

  “You must be too,” Izzy told her. “Else you’d be dead by now.”

  Nancy’s lips pursed. Her head bowed slightly. “I tried to escape. Somehow, they always seem to know exactly where I am.”

  “It’s the Chi-phones,” Sybil told her. “They’re using them to track us.”

  “That’s what I thought at first, but they found me even when my phone was at home.” Nancy swallowed hard as if to fortify her resolve. “The UW, they showed up a month ago and set up a labor camp near the reservoir, forcing prisoners to plow fields for the spring crops. Six peacekeepers just barged in and literally seized my house. They stripped away my guns, everything except the butter knives. Turned me into a slave, making me cook their meals, wash their clothes, and ...” Nancy hesitated, staring at a distant point across the water, bleak emotions stealing over her face.

  “You should come to Salt Lake City with—”

  “Hands up!” A UW peacekeeper sprung from behind a bush, his rifle jockeying between them.

  Izzy’s gaze was fused to his lever-action rifle, leaning against his backpack, just beyond reach.

  “Israe-er Bisse-r!” The soldier moved closer. “Turn around. On knees.”

  Face deathly pale, eyes pinched shut against reality, Izzy rotated in baby steps and slumped forward onto his shins. The peacekeeper exchanged his long gun for a pistol then extended the barrel toward Izzy’s head.

  39

  TEradS West Headquarters

  Langden Air Force Base, Texas

  THE QUESTION WHISPERED in Bradley’s mind, over and over: Are you even sure this is Abby?

  A rational voice reminded him that her satellite phone and tactical headset were at the scene, but the sentiment was too powerful to dismiss. There were no fingerprints, no strands of hair, no teeth to match dental records. Her fractured cheekbones and eye sockets would make facial recognition difficult, and since the EMP, DNA testing was unlikely. How could he ever be positive this was Abby?

  “God, I think I’m losing it,” he said aloud. Bradley paced alongside her, noticing there were no feet protruding upward beneath the sheet; and he vowed to hunt down these bastards, to inflict even more pain than Abby had endured. To hell with an eye for an eye; retribution would be meted out a thousandfold.

  Her eyes, he thought, her pretty blue eyes.

  Gently, he pulled back the swollen, bruised folds of skin as if fearful of hurting her.

  His stomach heaved. He lunged for a shallow stainless steel sink and began to expel an acidy mixture of rage and despair.

  Dear God ... How could you let them gouge out her eyes?

  He turned on the water, letting it rinse away the smell of vomit and cool his fiery-hot face. Footsteps were drumming through the hallway. The medical examiner had probably regained consciousness.

  Bradley was out of time.

  He poured out his heart, confessing, apologizing, promising; then he lovingly kissed her forehead.

  Soldiers began ramming the door.

  Agitated voices were shouting his name.

  With clumsy, trembling hands, Bradley tried to reposition the sheet, and it slipped to the floor. He bent over to grab it, then they were on him, wresting his arms behind his back, dragging him from the room. His eyes were fixed on Abby’s naked body, knowing it was the last time he would ever see her. He let out a choked sob, noting that every follicle of hair had been savagely ripped out by the root; then he began to laugh like a man who had skidded past the edge of sanity.

  40

  District Six, Texas

  LAST NIGHT, MAJOR Carlos Rodrig
uez had flown from Washington D.C. to Bucksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. At 0400 hours this morning, he borrowed a Humvee and embarked on the lamentable, 200-mile transit to District Six.

  Rodriguez had a cherubic face, deeply bronzed skin, and dark eyes framed by thick, black lashes—features that conspired to make him appear much younger than his forty-one years.

  Throughout his career, he had imparted this particular message more times than he cared to remember. The words never came easy; and this time, the loss was magnified by his own culpability. He had fast-tracked Kyle’s seventeen-year-old daughter into Scout Sniper training and recruited her into the TEradS. If only he had stayed out of it, Abby Webber would be alive, performing some mundane clerical or logistical duty like all the other underage draftees.

  Piss-poor timing, he thought, mulling over the recent spate of ambushes. During a year of nearly nonstop operations, he had lost sixteen Soldiers; in the past seventy-two hours, he had lost ten from TEradS West, twice that from TEradS East.

  Operations should be safer than ever, he told himself. Thousands of terrorists had been eradicated, their supply lines severed. So how were these dwindling cells getting a hold of sophisticated weapons—shoulder-launched missiles, rocket-propelled grenades, and military-grade explosives?

  Rodriguez was surprised to see a checkpoint outside District Six. He coasted to stop and lowered the driver’s window.

  “Good-morning,” he said, greeting the contingent of UW soldiers. “Why the checkpoint? Has there been an uptick in attacks?”

  “Civir-rian massacre e-reven peacekeeper.”

  Chalking it up to a language barrier, Rodriguez said, “Yes, terrorists do dress in civilian clothing.”

  He was caught off guard when the soldier took his picture with a Chi-pad.

  “Ah ... Major Rodriguez, purpose of visit?”

  “Official business,” he replied tersely.

  “Access deny. Too dangerous.”

  Rodriguez surveyed the vehicles and weapons impeding his path. He knew these guys were just following orders, but he didn’t have time to wade through the military bureaucracy in order to rectify the situation.

  What are they going to do, fire on me? he thought, steering the Humvee off-road, bypassing the blockade.

  The peacekeepers looked to their stunned commander; and when no order was issued, their demeanor degenerated into a barrage of shouts and frustrated gestures.

  Rodriguez’s thoughts shifted to his own commanding officer. General, I’m afraid it was a miscommunication caused by the language barrier ... Thank you, Captain Andrews. I learned from the best.

  He parked outside the sheriff’s station; and upon entering the building, he removed his hat and introduced himself to the deputies manning the desk. They remained silent, acknowledging him only with malevolent stares. Did they find out about Abby? He had specifically told Andrews to keep it quiet until the Murphys had been notified. News this horrendous needed to be delivered in person with appropriate decorum, and the thought of Kyle learning about it secondhand made him furious.

  “Thank you for your friendly assistance,” Rodriguez told the mute deputies. “I’ll just head on upstairs to the governor’s office.”

  Kyle’s wife, Jessie, looked up from behind a secretarial desk with an expectant smile that curdled into contempt. Her blue eyes didn’t look damp or puffy, but they smoldered with motherly wrath, a harbinger of the grief that would inevitably come.

  “Ma’am,” he said somberly, “is your husband available?”

  Jessie stood without a word—not a yes, no, hello, or even a “go to hell.” She opened Kyle’s door then interlocked her arms across her chest.

  Rodriguez took a deep breath, and clasping his hat, he marched into the room, formality in each stride.

  Kyle leapt to his feet, slamming his chair into the wall behind him. “I can’t believe you have the balls to come here, you son of a bitch!” Each syllable was lashing, piercing, like being sandblasted with razor blades.

  “Kyle, I am so sorry it’s come to this—”

  “The hell you are! You made a deliberate choice, a stupid, irresponsible decision, and we’re the ones paying the price!”

  Rodriguez nodded slowly and braced himself to absorb the onslaught. “I deeply regret the means by which you received this news.”

  Kyle whipped around the desk, rancor naked on his face. “I’m not interested in your phony contrition or excuses. You’re gutting the Constitution—the one you swore an oath to support and defend. And we’re gonna fight you!”

  “Governor, what in the hell are you talking about?”

  41

  TEradS West Headquarters

  Langden Air Force Base, Texas

  INFURIATED, RYAN Andrews threw open the door to Bradley’s quarters. Team 10B jumped to attention except for Bradley. His wrists and ankles were bound to his metal bed frame with flex-cuffs. A twin-sized flat sheet, rolled into a rope, looped around his head, the bulky knot effectively gagging him.

  “We just couldn’t listen to it anymore, sir,” Hutchinson said.

  Head shaking, eyes hooded, Ryan let out a beleaguered sigh. “We just lost 8B, our third team in three days. And TEradS East has lost five teams to ambush. Leave’s revoked. You’re headed for District Three in two hours. Bradley will join you after the funeral.”

  All four replied, “Yes, sir,” and filed from the room.

  “I convinced the medical examiner not to press charges.” Ryan loosened the gag, letting the loop rest on Bradley’s chest. The Marine began flexing his sore jaw.

  “Sergeant, you assaulted your team leader, broke into a morgue, knocked out a medical examiner, and barricaded yourself inside with the corpse of your dead wife. Then you screamed like a madman, insisting that’s not Abby, demanding a rescue mission. Do you understand how fucking insane that is?”

  “None of it would’ve happened if you would’ve let me say good-bye. I needed to see her—”

  “No. You didn’t. That was the fucking point.” Ryan took an abrupt step forward, struggling to muster patience and compassion. “You already had too many grisly images running around in your head, destroying brain cells.”

  “Ryan, listen to me—”

  “No, Bradley. You listen to me,” he said, index finger trained like a gun barrel on Bradley’s face. “You are going to shower and pack an overnight bag, including your dress blues for the funeral—”

  “Ryan, it’s not Abby.”

  “Shut up!”

  “Doesn’t it strike you as odd that all means of identification were destroyed? Fingerprints, hair, teeth, eyes—”

  “They gouged out her eyes?” Ryan felt a jolt of energy shoot through him, revulsion and anger, candy-coated in nausea. “Stop it! Just stop! At 1400 hours, we are going to escort Abby’s remains to District Six. And you are going to haul yourself out of whatever fucked-up state of denial you are in—”

  “But, Ryan—”

  “Not another word! And if you decide to do something stupid at the funeral? If you assault anyone else ... ? Your career is done, Bradley. Up to this point, I’ve been trying to protect your future. As of now, you are on your own. So think carefully before you speak—before you act.”

  “I can prove it’s not Abby—”

  “JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Ryan cinched the bedsheet gag over his mouth and stomped from the room, likening his best friend—a mentally unstable and highly trained Sniper—to a loose nuke, knowing that his own career was likely to become a casualty of the fallout.

  42

  District Six, Texas

  KYLE MURPHY GLOWERED at Rodriguez, irritated by the seemingly genuine confusion wafting over the Major’s baby-faced features. With a swiping motion, he whisked his Chi-phone from the desk, tramped across the room, and thrust it into his face. “I’m talking about your e-mail, Carlos. You traitorous, lying bastard!”

  Rodriguez snagged the phone from his hand and, for some inexplicable reason, began rereading
his own unconstitutional decree. The Major’s brow tightened, his finger glided along the touch screen, and his head began to shake. “I didn’t send this e-mail. And I sure as hell didn’t nullify the Second Amendment and threaten to sic the TEradS on you. Thanks for your vote of confidence, Kyle. How could you possibly believe I would order indiscriminate gun confiscation?”

  Defensively propping hands against hips, Kyle said, “You confiscated guns once before, Carlos, along with all other personal effects. Or have you conveniently forgotten about Camp Sunshine?”

  “You know exactly why that was necessary. Terrorists were hiding bombs in kids’ stuffed animals for God’s sake,” the Major said, flinging the Chi-phone at Kyle’s chest.

  He caught it with one hand and lobbed it onto the desk, consoled by the knowledge that he was at war with the peacekeepers rather than Rodriguez.

  “I’m sorry, Carlos,” he said, extending his hand. “Welcome to District Six. What can I do for you?”

  The Major’s expression wilted; sadness glinted in his reserved dark eyes. “At approximately 0700 hours yesterday ...”

  Intuiting the truth, Kyle’s legs gave out.

  “... Lance Corporal Abigail Webber sacrificed her life in service to her nation.”

  43

  District Eight, Colorado

  THE FIRST SENSATION she felt was pain, a sharp, aching throb. Forming thoughts was like swimming through quicksand. Twice before, she had tried to emerge from the murkiness, to recall what had happened, and had slipped back into the nothingness.

  Clumsily, her right hand migrated toward her head, groping for a magic button that would turn off the pain. Instead, she discovered a tender, swollen lump to the right of her ponytail band.

  Her eyes opened, yet the darkness lingered, dense and impenetrable with no variation of shading; a blackness so complete, she couldn’t see her own hand.