Green Fields Series Box Set | Vol. 4 | Books 10-12

by Lecter, Adrienne

  “Hey, dipshit,” I addressed him, earning myself a glare back. “Winter when we left for France—how many people were in the New Angeles science division? Don’t even deny that you have moles there. I was standing next to Richards when he pulled a few of them out just weeks ago.”

  Hamilton wasted a few seconds thinking—that felt like hours to me. I was surprised when he didn’t even use the occasion to bad-mouth me. “They don’t have a science division. At least then they didn’t have one, and that didn’t change until command sent me to the camp. You’d have to ask your buddy Greene, but I think they sent all shit they wanted analyzed up to the Silo.”

  Amos gave a twitch but didn’t speak up. Nate noticed me glance at the scavenger leader, his brow furrowed when he looked back to me. “Just a thought,” I mused, mostly speaking to him. “Is it completely paranoid of me to say that either Decker got his moles into the New Angeles supply line, or otherwise orchestrated it so that the scavengers were to blame for blowing up three ships full of fertilizer that arrived at the New Angeles docks?”

  Nate’s frown deepened. “Who’d be stupid enough to send even one ship, let alone three of them at the same time? You don’t have to be a conspiracy nut to know that fertilizer has a penchant for horrific explosions. History is full of accidents and home-grown terrorists getting ambitious.”

  My first impulse was to ask if he’d just made the worst pun ever—home-grown… fertilizer—but that he pretty much echoed Hill’s statement firmed my conviction.

  “Amos said they got told to bring the fertilizer to the ships. By scientists, behaving very scientist-y.” Hamilton smirked, ready to unleash a volley in my direction, I was sure, but I talked right over him. “What if someone else set this up? It couldn’t have been hard to get the scavengers to do something after a long, hard winter where half of them starved. And I saw myself that, even now, it wouldn’t take too many people to kill the guards on one of those supply ships. Everyone on the ships and at the docks died that day, so there are no witnesses, except for people like Amos who are, at best, being blamed for this, and likely never spoke up because they knew squat. Is this something Decker would do, to further heat up the conflicts that were already coming to a boil the summer before that? Because that sounds like a much better explanation to me than the scavengers suddenly turning into a faction of well-organized terrorists when I could barely get enough of them organized for a single raid on a base, and that was before we fractured into small groups with a million different purposes.”

  Nobody answered at first. The marines took their cues from Blake, who did his best to remain neutral. My guys equally so, although Martinez looked like he was going to be sick. Cole had his poker face on but Hill was nodding slowly, as if what I’d just said went well with his statement about the fertilizer. Surprisingly, it wasn’t Nate but Hamilton who spoke up.

  “I’m not saying it makes sense, but if someone asked me how I would have retaliated for having to swallow a god-awful truce forced on me, I would have looked for a way to utterly discredit my antagonists first, and make their own support turn on them. Killing hundreds, damaging their supply lines, annihilating their trust and willingness to continue cooperating with them—sounds like a jackpot to me.” He paused before adding, “And I probably shouldn’t admit to this, but since we’re already best buds, who cares? Two of my people died that day, and I doubt they would have been anywhere near the docks had they known this was going to happen. They were both good plants since they’d been part of your rabble when you attacked the base in Colorado, but saw reason during the winter when half of their group starved to death because they were too proud to come to us and accept help. I know nobody suspected them because their families—also working with us—remained and kept reporting in when the coast was clear once more. Since their so-called leaders claimed responsibility for it, we never thought to investigate. Even Greene kicked them out for a year and massively increased security after that.” His smirk let me know that my actions the year before that had paved the way for that kind of thinking. As much as I hated to admit it, he wasn’t wrong there.

  One of the marines finally broke his silence, ignoring Blake’s stoic take on things. “This makes no fucking sense! You said everyone on those ships died? That must have included those scientists, fake or not. Who’d be insane enough to do that?”

  This I had an answer for. “Days ago, we busted down the doors to the lab where the last of the serum project scientists were holed up. They committed communal suicide so we couldn’t beat the answers out of them. Any answers, really. I’d say that’s exactly the same kind of person who’d willingly turn themselves into a suicide bomber.”

  The guy just kept staring at me, blinking furiously. “No shit?”

  “No shit,” I insisted.

  “Those were the people you were working with, right?” he went on asking.

  If he’d slapped me in the face, it would have stung less. “Never,” I growled, more emphatically than I’d intended.

  The guy looked from me to Nate, then back again, but before he could choke on the metaphorical foot he’d rammed down his own throat, Blake cut in. “It’s true what she says about the scientists at the lab. I’ve never thought about what happened at the docks like this, but after the shit that went down in Dallas, I’m not categorically discounting it, either.” His eyes briefly flitted over to Amos, and I couldn’t help but feel like he and the scavenger had formed at least an easy bond of friendship, if not actual trust. “Even a week ago, I would have said you’re all drugged-up, trigger-happy assholes. Not saying you’re not, but what I’ve seen from you and your people was a lot closer to how Miller and Lewis run their gang than the wild tales that have been circulating. Could you have destroyed the docks? Yes, but theoretically, so could a team of my people, or the army’s. And Hamilton’s not wrong—when we heard the declaration that this was an act of retaliation, nobody thought twice about it. A lot of us felt like we hadn’t treated the scavengers right that first year, but that alleviated our guilt as it confirmed the worst of the prejudice any of us were harboring—ignoring that a lot of our own people had been part of their ranks.” The way he shot me a sidelong glance made me guess that the three guys we’d left at the Silo—my Idiot Brigade, as I’d not-so-lovingly called them—had long since been uncovered as what they were, and the fact that they’d come with Blake and Buehler made it easy to believe that they had found some new allegiance.

  Amos let out a harsh peal of laughter, only shutting up when he realized that we were all staring at him. “I wish Eden was still around to see this,” he muttered before he sobered up. “How would we have profited from turning New Angeles against us? They were the only ones who always had an open door for us. They were also our best takers for pretty much any shit we dragged out of houses and stores. Why else do you think we even went searching across three states to get enough fertilizer to their ships? We trusted them, and they trusted us. Until the docks blew up, that is.”

  This kept getting weirder and weirder. “Why did none of you speak up?”

  More laughter answered me, even harsher now. “Do you think anyone would have listened?”

  The other two scavengers agreed, the so-far silent one adding, “Besides, it wasn’t like we’ve ever been a united front except for when we followed your call. We didn’t know for sure that it wasn’t us, you know? Harris is one of our most successful leaders, and he has maybe two hundred people who are willing to listen to him, if not follow him into war. Just because we hadn’t done it and didn’t know anyone personally who’d been that insane didn’t mean there wasn’t anyone else that crazy. And yes, we did feel betrayed by you and what they told us you did. A lot of us starved to death or otherwise didn’t make it, and nobody was doing anything about it. That suddenly stopped after the docks, and some kind of leadership started cropping up in our ranks. That’s also why we kept coming back to that damn camp with the arena. At least they let us in and fed us. That was more t
han a lot of the settlements were willing to give us.” He glanced at the marines then. “No offense, but the deal the Silo offered wasn’t interesting for a lot of us. We went out on the road to be free to do whatever we wanted. What you offered was indentured servitude with maybe a sliver of hope to rise into the ranks of foot soldiers. Even the army’s deal was better; at least they promised us gear and weapons from the day we signed on. More people than we care to admit took that deal, and nobody’s heard from them since. Shows you what trusting anyone has gotten us.”

  Hamilton let out a nasty little chuckle. “You haven’t heard from them because they’re feasting like maggots while they sit securely in their bases or play guards for the settlements. Why go out on the road and get slaughtered by you maniacs when there was lots of other work to be done elsewhere? Even so, we lost a good third of the people we had and those that we managed to recruit. We’ve been bleeding just as heavily as you have, idiot.”

  I knew it was about time to stop playing the blame game, and I absolutely hated having to speak up after Hamilton, pretty much agreeing with him. “It doesn’t really matter,” I pointed out, immediately drawing everyone’s ire on me. “Seriously, it doesn’t. We can’t undo the damage, and we can’t raise the dead. What we can do is try to uproot the cause of all this, and hope that will help. That’s our mission, anyway, so let’s get to it. Believe whatever you want, but to me it sounds more likely that someone has actively been working on sending our country into chaos, and what Amos brought up fits perfectly into that.”

  Hamilton smiled sweetly at me. “Spoken like a true scavenger whore.”

  I waited for Nate to say something, but he didn’t. Anger flared up inside of me but I did my best to put a lid on it before it could get out of hand, choosing to instead ignore them both. “It does explain why Greene has opened their gates to the scavengers again. He must have realized that they did not order any fertilizer, or not in this way, and that the ships had been turned into bombs by someone else.”

  Amos didn’t look happy at that assessment. “Then why not exonerate us?”

  I shrugged. “Who would have believed him? And what would it have mattered since the incident united your ranks, in a sense? He must have figured this was best for his people.” I turned to Martinez. “Did their sanctions fall back on you, too?”

  Martinez shook his head. “Heightened security, yes, but that was about it. They also didn’t keep anyone from getting into the city who went through us first. I’m not sure, but I think he had a deal with Zilinsky about vetting people. But most of it wasn’t necessary since a lot of people lost faith in New Angeles after that. Add the fires, and a year later there were fewer people on the coast than when you were still around and when we started building the new towns. The impact on New Angeles may have been the most direct, but it affected us, too. I know at least twenty people who gave up and turned either to the Silo, took the army’s offer, or headed to New Vegas to join Harris and his people—and that’s considering that Zilinsky has always been running a tight ship and we’ve had a lot of people who were way more loyal than the average settlers. I know that farther up the coast, only one in three new settlements tried to make it through the next winter. The others were all abandoned before the end of summer, and people went elsewhere.”

  Silence fell as everyone was contemplating the ramifications of this—or maybe that was just me. Blake was the first to speak up. “Does it really matter? The damage is done. And from what you shared about the serum, it’s a problem that will inevitably take care of itself.”

  I wasn’t the only one who grimaced at his statement but did my best to remain diplomatic. “The thing is, I’m much more inclined to work with and trust the scavengers than anyone else since they have virtually no skin in the game, and they are the faction that hasn’t betrayed me yet and never stood by idly when I needed help.” Blake opened his mouth as if to object, but I silenced him with a raised hand. “I know that a lot of people had very good reasons for why they did what they did. I’m not looking for blame here. I’m looking for allies. I trust my people, but that’s also the faction most likely to still harbor moles directly planted by Decker—like that bitch that tried to kill me. While I don’t think Richards was involved, his disappearance doesn’t cast a better light on the army. Scott and all his men bit it so I doubt we’ll get support from their half of the marines. We still have the marines from the Silo, but you keep reminding me that your cooperation with us has been conditional and limited for a variety of reasons. That leaves the scavengers. At the very least, they have no reason to be in cahoots with Decker since he was the one to sign their death warrant. I’ll take that as motivation to help us as we gun for him any day.”

  I wondered what Hill and Cole were making of this, but since they didn’t speak up, I figured that was a discussion that could wait for another day. I was surprised when none of the marines objected, either, although Blake eventually downed his coffee and got up laboriously. “I’ll have to talk to Buehler when we catch up to the rest of the convoy,” he offered. “But when we left, Wilkes made it plain to us that we were to act at our own discretion. If you want us, we’re along for the rest of the ride. I wouldn’t have committed people to the Dallas suicide mission otherwise.”

  I accepted that with a nod, but then thought better of it and offered him my hand to shake. His grip was firm, not that wishy-washy thing most people went for who knew what was hiding underneath my leather gloves—or missing, rather. Neither Hamilton nor Nate said anything, leaving this up to me. It was just as well, as a moment later one of the perimeter guards dropped in, letting us know that we had a call on the radio. Nate was gone as soon as the marine stopped speaking, leaving us to enjoy our breakfast. I sat back down and braved the rice-bean-soup concoction, ignoring how Amos kept watching me.

  I had a feeling that things wouldn’t get much better than this.

  Chapter 3

  By the end of the day, we finally caught up to the convoy thanks to them having bugged down for the night early. Sitting in the passenger seat for hours on end hadn’t been much more pleasant than the day before, although I hadn’t torn my stitches again. Martinez still insisted on checking my wound, muttering to himself the entire time when he was forced to lance it once more to drain what felt like an unhealthy amount of pus. When I remarked on that—and how the serum was letting my body get so much of an infection going—he snorted. “You can still run a fever, too,” he muttered as he went about sewing me back up. “In fact, what’s going on right now is your immune system hurling everything it has into that part of your body—think three weeks’ worth of healing in less than twenty-four hours. That’s where all the pressure and pus is coming from. Give it a day or two, and you’re good.” He said that with a latent note of wonder, and when I eyed him askance, he shrugged. “That’s about as bad as what Miller had when he got speared by that rebar. Remember how he had to sit on the sidelines for pretty much everything except walking and running for weeks? If you can work through the pain, you’ll be cleared for duty by tomorrow, the day after at the latest. Not sure what this does to the general degradation of your body by the virus, but for your fitness, it’s a godsend. I’m pretty sure that Miller and Hamilton are green with envy considering their much minor wounds haven’t healed that well yet. And it’s not a stretch to say that, deadly ramifications aside, I think Blake would opt for the shot in a pinch if it meant he could run, unhindered, by tomorrow.”

  That sounded about right, although Hamilton wasn’t being all that stealthy with his misgivings toward me—but what else was new?

  “Still don’t regret that you never got inoculated, huh?” I hazarded a guess.

  Martinez gave me a pained smile in return. “You know that I objected long before I knew it would kill me faster than any of you are comfortable with,” he remarked. “But my choices are my own just as yours are yours. This wound would have killed you if you hadn’t gotten it. And you’d never have made it out of the Cana
da base without it, either. I can’t say what I’d have done in your position. Probably the same. It’s always easy to be high and mighty when you don’t have a knife pressed against your throat.” He paused, his gaze fastened on my face. “I almost hesitate to ask, but why the sudden need to reflect? From the very day we met, you’ve always been pretty straightforward about your drive to survive. And you don’t exactly look like you’re filled with regret.”

  “No, just pus and lymph,” I joked, stretching experimentally to see if the two new stitches he’d just put in would hold. They hurt like hell, but unlike last night I could now twist my torso at least half of the range that was normal. “And no real reason. I’m just a little out of it.”

  Martinez grimaced. “Losing half of your people and getting stabbed in the back will do that to the best of us—and that’s ignoring the stress of the months before that.” Just then, Sonia and Burns walked by us, and although she ignored me, I must have made a face since Martinez frowned after them before turning back to me. “What’s going on between the two of you? Don’t tell me she’s still jealous of you because you and Burns are friends. He has other female friends as well. He’s even friendly with the army folks, although that’s true for you, too. So what’s up? And don’t bother denying it. She’s behaving around you almost as bad as you do with Hamilton.”

  I gave him my best fake smile. “Why don’t you ask her that?” I almost added, “since I’m being so unreasonable,” but thankfully managed to suppress that part. I absolutely didn’t have to give anyone even more ammunition against me than they already had.

  Martinez narrowed his eyes. “Just one problem: I care a lot more about you than her. And considering only one of you is married to a manipulative asshole who’s right now coming apart at the seams, I won’t let you push me away, too.”