by D. J. Molles
And then it felt like he was supposed to do this.
Gomez scrawled his name on the sign-up sheet.
Sam had already made up his mind at that point, but even if he hadn’t, with everyone watching, he would’ve done it anyway. Peer pressure and all that.
SIX
─▬▬▬─
PALE HORSE
He stood at the top of the refinery and looked northward.
Beneath his feet, machinery rattled and rumbled, and crude oil was turned into fuel. A substance that was more valuable than gold had ever been in any distant time. It was liquid power. And it belonged to him.
The sea was at his back, five miles distant. Just a tiny glimmer of sunlight on water. But it was not the sea that held his destiny. It was everything that stretched out before him to the north.
An endless Promised Land magnitudes larger than the patch of desert the Jews had fought for.
His own people had wandered in a desert of sorts, for far longer than forty years. And now Mateo Ibarra Espinoza had breached the defenses of the Canaanites, and brought his people across the border to finally take what was owed to them.
He didn’t indulge in melodrama, but the comparison made him smile nonetheless. He enjoyed it when history proved itself to be a wheel. It gave him a sense of control. It made the future less nebulous, because if he wanted to know the future, all he needed to do was look into the past.
The southwind blew at Mateo’s back, whipping his loose-fitting guayabera and causing strands of his long black hair to tickle his face. The wind smelled of Louisiana salt marshes. But it also smelled of Mateo’s home state of Nuevo Leon. These two places were not so different.
“I like having the sea at my back,” Mateo said, loud enough to be heard over the buffeting wind. He spoke English, because the man standing on the platform with him was an American, and that was all he understood.
Mateo turned with a faint smile, allowing the wind to clear the hair out of his face. “It reminds me of Hernan Cortez.”
The American on the platform with him was a decent-sized man of maybe forty years. His light brown hair was going gray, and there were streaks of white in his very macho, horseshoe mustache. A mustache that seemed incongruous on a face with so much fear in it.
The man would not even make eye contact with Mateo. He stared off into the distance, like a soldier at parade rest. Perhaps out of some misguided sense of respect.
There was no one else on the platform with them.
Mateo had come up in an organization run by tough guys who were only tough when they were surrounded by their bodyguards. This had always struck Mateo as ludicrous. He was either on the path of destiny, in which case, no one could stop him, or he was against destiny, and someone stronger than him would kill him and take the reigns.
Mateo spoke as he approached the man, the heels of his fine leather boots clicking on the concrete deck of the platform. “When Cortez arrived in the New World with his conquistadors, he burned the boats so that it was clear to his men that there was no turning back. The only way was forward. And then six hundred men conquered an empire.”
He now stood within arm’s reach of the other man, and he stopped there. “That’s why I like the sea at my back.” He gestured out to the north. “All of that is for us. We can conquer it, but only if we recognize that there is no turning back.”
The man in front of him gave a shaky nod.
Sweat glistened at his hairline.
Mateo quirked an eyebrow. “Joseph, do you think I’m going to kill you?”
A tremble ran through the other man’s features. His mouth opened, and worked like a fish out of water.
Mateo was aware that Joseph was bigger and stronger than him. And yet, Joseph was terrified, and Mateo was at peace. Mateo found this fascinating.
“If I were to take ahold of you and try to throw you off this platform, would you fight back?”
Finally, Joseph’s nervous eyes flicked down to Mateo’s calm gaze. Mateo could see the man trying to figure out whether this was a trick question or not.
It wasn’t. Mateo was simply curious.
Mateo smiled to break the tension. “Relax, Joseph. You’re acting like a puta.”
Joseph tittered, and a shaky smile flitted across his mouth for a moment.
Mateo clasped his hands in front of him. “You ever read Sun Tzu?”
Joseph shook his head. “No.”
Mateo shrugged. “Don’t bother. It’s mostly bullshit. But there was a good lesson on command that I remember. Sun Tzu was displaying his prowess as a general to the emperor, and he said he could make the emperor’s geishas march like soldiers. So he told the geishas how to march. But when he ordered them to do it, they just laughed at him. Sun Tzu did not take offense. He told the emperor, ‘If the orders are not clear, then it is the fault of the general if they are not obeyed.’ Then he had his soldiers demonstrate to the geishas exactly how to march, and asked the geishas if they now understood exactly what they were supposed to do. They said that they understood, so he ordered them to march. Again they laughed. Sun Tzu then told the emperor, ‘If the orders are clear, and still not obeyed, then the soldiers must be executed.’” Mateo laughed.
Joseph blanched at the mention of execution.
“I believe the emperor stopped Sun Tzu before he could behead the geishas. Or something like that.” Mateo waved it off. “My point is this: I ordered you to oversee the transfer of fuel to President Briggs in Colorado. And what happened to that convoy?”
Joseph swallowed. “The convoy was ambushed. Sir.”
Mateo nodded. “And we lost all the fuel, didn’t we?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes.” Mateo sighed. “Perhaps my orders were not specific enough. So perhaps the responsibility lies on my shoulders as commander. Do you think that is the case?”
Joseph gaped. Again fearing a trick question.
Mateo’s eyes flashed with irritation. “Have the cajones to answer the question, Joseph. If it was my fault, then tell me so. Otherwise it was your fault and you must be executed.”
Joseph blinked. “Your orders weren’t clear. Sir.”
Mateo took a deep breath. Pressed it out of his lungs. Nodded again. “You are right. Thank you. It is not enough for me to suppose that my soldiers will somehow intuit exactly what I want for them. That is bad leadership. So I’m going to give you new orders.”
He stepped up close to Joseph, so that he could lower his voice and still be heard over the wind whipping across the platform. “You are going to organize a new convoy. President Briggs still needs his fuel, and he still has value to me as an ally. I want another twenty-one thousand gallons sent—fourteen thousand of jet fuel, and seven thousand of diesel. And I want you to personally make sure that this convoy reaches Greeley, Colorado, no matter what. Do you understand the orders that I’m giving you?”
“Yes, sir,” Joseph said without hesitation.
Mateo thought a more intelligent man might’ve asked some clarifying questions, given the stakes involved. But Joseph was eager for the meeting to be over, and Mateo could understand that.
Mateo favored his man with a smile. Held up a finger. “So if the fuel does not get to Greeley for whatever reason, and turned over into the hands of President Briggs, then you understand that I will take your wife and your daughter and your son and I will force you to watch as I burn them alive? And then I will burn you alive, as well?”
Joseph’s entire body shook.
Mateo watched him, and couldn’t help feeling a sense of disdain for the man. He reconsidered throwing him off the platform anyways, and almost did it. But some of his best lieutenants had been formed by allowing them a second chance. They worked very hard when they finally understood and accepted what was at stake.
Their backs were to the sea.
The only way was forward.
Perhaps Joseph would make a good lieutenant yet.
“I understand,” Joseph said, final
ly.
“Good.” Mateo reached up to Joseph, and the man flinched as Mateo’s hand took him by the side of the head…and gave him a gentle pat. “See that it gets done.”
***
Mateo remained on the platform after Joseph had left.
He stood against the railing, staring out at the land that fate was going to deliver into his hands. But he didn’t see it. In his mind’s eye, he saw the convoy, and he saw where they had been ambushed, and he saw who it was that had ambushed them.
Captain Terrance Lehy. Mateo was sure of that.
Mateo understood that Captain Lehy had been one of these “Coordinators,” one of the soldiers that the United States government had left behind with access to bunkers full of supplies, and a mission to rebuild American society if it were to fall.
Which it had. As all empires eventually fall.
Mateo had spent his life waiting for it, a barbarian at the gates of Rome, waiting for the disease of weakness to soften his target. All of Mateo’s life had led to this point, right here, standing on a refinery platform and looking out over the territory that he had claimed for himself.
Captain Lehy had been a thorn in his side since day one.
He’d disrupted their operations, fighting a guerilla war all across Texas, and making every mile a hard-fought one. Mateo had grudging respect for Captain Lehy, and he did not underestimate the man.
But now two instances had been brought to light that revealed something about Captain Lehy. Something that, at the surface, seemed to make him a more daunting adversary, but, upon further inspection, could also be a weakness that Mateo might exploit.
The previous week, Mateo had been informed of an imminent raid on a fuel cache in Alabama—one of the states that Nuevas Fronteras owned only by a thread. Mateo had dispatched a large contingent of his men to thwart the commandos from the United Eastern States that were carrying out the raid on his fuel cache.
Only a handful of the men he’d dispatched had made it back.
Somehow, miraculously, Captain Lehy had appeared with a tank and delivered a catastrophic counter attack.
But…perhaps it wasn’t so miraculous.
Today, Captain Lehy had executed another raid. This time on a convoy that no one but Nuevas Fronteras and Greeley should have known about.
Which meant that Captain Lehy was either incredibly lucky…
Or someone was feeding him information.
Mateo pondered this for a while. The wind in his ears created a white noise that made it easy for him to think. And after a time, he came to his decision. And Mateo never second-guessed his decisions.
Once it was made, he descended the stairs from the platform, and entered the offices of the refinery where his headquarters now sat. He found his second-in-command at a table in an old break room with a vending machine that had long since been emptied.
Joaquin Lazcano Leyva was playing conquian with two other lieutenants. He laid his cards down immediately when Mateo entered the room, knowing that Mateo wanted him for something.
Mateo motioned him out of the room, and he followed. When they were in the hall outside, Mateo put his arm around Joaquin’s shoulder with brotherly affection, and spoke in Spanish. “I have something I need you to do.”
***
Carl arrived in Fort Bragg midmorning.
They rolled in through the main gates. The guard towers bristled with weaponry. The fences shimmered with high voltage wires. Dust plumed up behind the convoy of vehicles: One white Ford F-150 that looked like it’d been through the ringer, followed by four tanker trunks, and a Humvee taking up the rear.
The gates shut quickly behind them, barring the predatory world outside.
Carl was in the front passenger’s seat of the F-150. The sun glinted into his face. He squinted against it. His mouth was downturned at the corners.
He was still not fully healed. Doubted his busted ribs would be good to go for several weeks yet, especially after the stress he’d put them through at the airport. Unconsciously, he found his right arm constantly cinching into his right side, to protect the damage there.
He’d also taken a bullet to the leg. Luckily, just a hole in the meat. Hurt like hell, but he’d been shot before. He could manage.
Despite getting shot up, the operation at the airport in Alabama had been a success, and a portion of the spoils of the raid were riding into Fort Bragg with him. They’d captured twelve tankers in all. Four stayed in the Butler Safe Zone in Georgia. Four came back to Fort Bragg with Carl.
The other four went with Lee, Abe, and Julia, into Texas.
The 28,000 gallons of fuel that Carl brought back with him would get the farming operations started again. They’d be able to secure all thirty fields with high voltage wire, and then they’d be able to plant, and harvest what they planted.
That was all fine and dandy.
But farming wasn’t what Carl was here for.
Carl was here for blood.
Someone in the Fort Bragg Safe Zone had sold them down the river.
Someone had been talking with Greeley, Colorado.
Whoever that leak was, they had cost the lives of some of Carl’s friends.
And Carl was not a man that had many friends to begin with.
Passing over those streets, into the center of the Safe Zone, Carl looked out and he saw filth. Oh, it looked nice enough. These neighborhood streets where people lived in safety, with food to eat, and electric lighting, and running water. All these cozy civilians.
But he saw treachery lurking in them like infection in a limb.
He meant to cut it out.
How many of these people were Lincolnists? How many of them sided with Elsie Foster? How many of them wanted to watch the Fort Bragg Safe Zone fall apart, and the entire United Eastern States crumble, and President Briggs from Greeley, Colorado come riding in on a white charger?
It’d be hard to root them all out.
Carl was about to turn on the lights, and he knew the cockroaches would scatter.
“Drop me at the Support Center,” Carl said.
Mitch, in the driver’s seat, nodded.
In the back, Rudy, Morrow, and Logan—Carl’s team—remained as silent as they had the whole way back.
The white pickup separated from the convoy, and plunged straight into the heart of Fort Bragg. And Carl thought that the color of the pickup was fitting for him.
Some people around here might be waiting for a hero on a white charger.
But they were going to have to accept death on a pale horse instead.
***
Angela was expecting him.
She’d heard him coming through the command-net radio that sat on her desk, but besides that—and perhaps what had filled her with a sense of unease—she kept a civilian-band radio on her desk as well. It was there to monitor emergencies, but as the convoy bearing Carl Gilliard passed through Fort Bragg, she heard various transmissions, civilian-to-civilian. Some of them in awe. Some of them hostile.
Eventually she’d shut the civilian radio off, unable to take the combination of bitter speculation and hero worship.
Now she watched from the window of her office, as the dirty, white pickup rolled up to the front of the Soldier Support Center. It looked worse than it had when it had left Fort Bragg the week before. The front brush guard was dented. The windshield cracked. Sprays of mud and dirt coated the sides in ochre.
The passenger door opened.
Master Sergeant Carl Gilliard stepped out.
His bald head looked sunburned. He wore combat pants and shirt. The shirt untucked, and unzipped down to the center of his chest, revealing a white strip of bandaging underneath. He wore only a sidearm. He looked tired as hell, and beat up. He with his right arm hovering protectively at his side, and his left leg stiff and unwieldy.
But then Carl closed his pickup door and he turned, and he looked right up at Angela.
And she saw that he had hellfire burning in his eyes.
Angela nodded down to him. And he nodded up at her.
The pickup drove off, and Carl walked into the front doors of the Support Center.
Angela turned away from the window. Her hands hung at her sides. She took a big breath and steeled herself for the conversation to come.
Angela wasn’t sure who had occupied her office before the end of society, but it was spacious, so they must have been somewhat important. The far side of the office, near the door, was big enough for a rug and two chairs. Her side of the office, near the window, held her desk. On the desk was a plaque, and it said President Angela Houston.
A title she still couldn’t get used to.
It hung on her like an adult’s clothes on a girl playing dress-up.
She sat down behind her desk. Then decided that seemed too casual and stood up again. She ran a hand over the top of her curly blonde hair. She kept it in a plain pony tail, but it had always been unruly—moreso now that she didn’t have a cache of beauty products to tame it with. She felt no flyaways, though. So she had that going for her.
Did natural-born leaders just have an instinct for how to appear when someone came in the room? Or was she putting too much thought into this? At the end of the day, she was the elected leader of the United Eastern States. And as ridiculous as that was to her, that meant she had the authority to put the leash on Carl. It didn’t matter how she presented herself.
Confidence. You need to just have confidence.
There was a knock at the door.
Claire Staley opened it and looked in at Angela. “Master Sergeant Gilliard, ma’am.”
Angela nodded, and Claire stepped back from the doorway, and Carl stepped in.
The door closed behind him.
He limped to the front of her desk. Eyes up. Head back. He stopped about a pace off of Angela’s desk.
Angela looked at him with genuine concern. “Jesus, Carl. What happened to you?”
“Nothing that won’t heal.”
She gestured to one of the chairs across from her. “Please, sit.”
