by David Poyer
“Okay, I can understand that. It’s hard work.”
Is this asshole insulting him? “I don’t have no problem with hard work, sir.”
The counselor waves his hands without looking Hector’s way. “Sure, I didn’t mean anything by that. Just that … you’re older now. Seen the world. So what’s the plan? Give me something here, and we’ll see what we can do for you.”
“I never been great with numbers,” Hector says. “So I never thought about college. But lately I been thinking, maybe I could work with people. Returning troops. People with depression, maybe. Or like that … there anything like that I could do without college?”
“All right, let’s pursue that. You’re talking about something like a two-year counseling degree. Or maybe even just a certificate of completion. I’ve seen vets go into crisis intervention, drug programs, youthful offenders. Does that sound like the sort of—?”
“Yeah, something like that might be good.” He’s actually starting to get excited. Maybe helping other people would help himself. Get out of his own fucking head. Since it’s not very nice in there.
“Well, let’s check out what’s available.” The counselor taps his screen, moves things around. Then frowns. “Uh-oh … when exactly did you become a citizen, Hector?”
“When? Uh … at boot camp. They gave citizenship to everyone who enlisted.”
A sharp glance over the glasses. “Right, when the war started, right?”
“Yes sir.”
“Well, problem is…” More scrolling, then some keyboard tapping. “I’m sorry. Says here, the Patriot GI bill doesn’t apply to service members who became citizens after they entered military service. Only to those who were already Americans when they signed up.”
The guy reads some more, frowns, shakes his head. Then rolls his chair back from the desk and shrugs. Searches in his desk for a business card, and scribbles a number on the back. “I’d go for the old job back, if I were you. Here’s the hiring number over at Seth’s. They give you any shit, come back to me and we’ll set them straight.”
“I don’t think that’s gonna work,” Hector says, and something in his tone seems to warn the guy, because he suddenly looks down and goes quiet, no longer smiling.
But Hector gets a grip and leaves out of there before anything bad happens.
* * *
BACK in the car, he takes a P pill, hesitates, then dry-bolts another. Sits there shaking.
It don’t matter.
It don’t matter at all, he tells himself.
But he can’t shake the feeling of threat, the dread, the rage. No GI benefits, after all the shit he’s been through? All he fucking gave? Something’s not right. The white guy, the counselor. Was he smiling? Was he laughing? Was he holding out, fucking with him? Maybe he better ask somebody else. Make sure. But he isn’t going to take this lying down.
He drives past Mirielle’s house again. But the empty driveway, the vacant windows, all say no one’s home.
IV
THE JUDGMENT OF THE FATES
16
Washington, DC
THE Gold Wing sputtered and nearly died, making Dan wonder if the old bike was going to last the final few miles in to the city. It wouldn’t top fifty now, even at full throttle, and trailed a wake of black smoke in the early dawn. Well, he could probably walk in the rest of the way to the Pentagon. Fortunately there was hardly any traffic. He remembered this section of four-lane, heading into the Beltway, as jammed solid with traffic as early as six in the morning. But today his engine coughed on through what was otherwise near silence.
He’d been on the road for five days after viewing the body at Chadron. After that, Mobilized Militia roadblocks and warning signs had shunted him in a sweeping dogleg through southern Nebraska. Then south again to avoid Omaha, which the M&Ms said had “gone dark,” whatever that meant. Somewhere in there, at a police station in some anonymous small town, he’d managed to get through on a phone. To his ex-wife, to see if she had any news. That had been an unpleasant call, but the upshot was that she’d heard nothing either. He’d left flyers on “refugee bulletin boards,” as people were calling the telephone poles along the roads where vackers left despairing messages for the missing. He’d left the number of his and Blair’s home phone at each roadblock he stopped at. But he’d heard nothing since Wyoming.
He didn’t want to accept that the battered, flayed corpse he’d viewed there had truly been his daughter’s. Yet her trail seemed to have ended there. Gone cold.
So he just tried not to think about any of it as he pressed on.
Through Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia. The hills gradually climbed again, his headlight sweeping in great curves through the dark as he pushed up into the Alleghenies. Fuel was a worry, and he didn’t have a ration card. Sometimes his military ID worked. Often he had to beg, and once had stooped so low as to siphon a gallon out of a tractor left in a field. The ersatz high-alcohol “war fuel” made the Honda sputter and hesitate. And at each roadblock, he’d been faced with the same narrowed eyes, the same questions and demands for documents. Was he a deserter? A spy? An antiwa? The pass from the M&Ms had helped. But after a while he’d started taking side cuts, back roads, country roads. Avoiding the cities, even when it cost him time.
Because more than once he’d seen other corpses dangling, and freshly dug graves behind those roadblocks.
Day after day he’d settled into the trip. Hour after hour, to the roaring music of the twin cylinders. Bedding down long after dark, in motels, where they were still open. Or else crawling into a worn, mildewed sleeping bag he’d found in a wrecked, abandoned camper east of Beatrice, Nebraska. Bolting down beans heated over a campfire.
And the hills and plains had brought a measure of peace. As if occupying the eyes with passing scenery, the ears with the buffeting of wind and the drone of the engine, absorbed the brain to the exclusion of memory.
But only a measure.
She was gone. Vanished, like millions of others. Fed into the maw of this insane war, which seemed more futile the longer he contemplated it. What had either side won in the end?
He shook his head, motoring grimly east under a gray and frowning sky.
* * *
THIS morning he’d followed his headlights down out of the mountains for the last leg toward DC. From Washington to Washington. A checkpoint slowed him east of Front Royal, but the National Guard had waved him past a battery of pylon-mounted cameras without even an ID check. So maybe things were loosening up at last. From there he’d powered east under that same pewter sky, watching it gradually gray toward dawn.
Until the Dunn Loring Metro station, where 66 crossed over the Beltway. Humvees and Oshkoshes loomed ahead, and the sloping camouflage-painted hull of an armored personnel carrier. Above it a small dish antenna rotated, with a larger panel behind it pointed up at the low morning-lit clouds. Yellow signs warned SLOW. PREPARE FOR INSPECTION.
This checkpoint looked more permanent. Almost like the entrance to a military base overseas. He let the cycle coast, the engine blipping and farting as it braked, and maneuvered among looming barriers, tons of rocks netted into huge square gabions with galvanized steel mesh. Other signs separated “civilian” traffic and “official” into lanes. He hesitated, nearing the decision point, and countersteered at the last second into the “official” lane.
Troops, not M&Ms. Armed, unsmiling, but they seemed to be regular forces. And he didn’t see any gallows or body bags, thank God. He lifted a glove to the sentry and coasted to a halt. A sign read DO NOT PROCEED PAST YELLOW LINE UNLESS INSTRUCTED TO. DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED. NO PROCEDA LA LÍNEA AMARILLA PASADA A MENOS QUE SE INDICA. FUERZA MORTAL AUTORIZADA.
“Cut your engine, sir,” the sentry said, emerging from his booth and flicking a flattened hand across his throat. He was in full gear, flak jacket, helmet, and carbine, but Dan didn’t recognize the black one-piece uniform, even up close. “Open your saddlebags and any storage compartm
ents. Then step away from your vehicle. ID and travel pass, please.”
He handed over what he had. The guard flipped through them, expression indecipherable, and finally pointed him to the side. “Clear the lane. Park there. Check in at the blue booth to your right.” He didn’t meet Dan’s eyes.
In the containerized office a sergeant, also in black uniform but with Army-style rank rockers, studied his documents again as Dan explained once more. Home from the Pacific. On leave. Headed for DC. He leaned in, examining her silver cap insignia. It seemed to represent the head of the Statue of Liberty, surrounded by a laurel wreath.
The sergeant flicked a fingernail at the note from the M&Ms. “What’s this, patriot?”
He blinked. Patriot? “A pass. From the Wyoming militia.”
“Are you a member of the Wyoming militia?”
“Am I? No. They gave me a pass to help me through their roadblocks.”
“Why were they letting you through their roadblocks, sir?” The “sir” was there, but the way she said it didn’t make it an honorific. And maybe “sir” in place of “patriot” wasn’t a good sign either.
“Why … well, because I was on leave, headed here. Like I said.”
“You’re a captain, sir? In the Navy?”
“Correct. As my ID says.” His wartime rank hadn’t made it onto his DD Form 2. And anyway he was probably reverted to O-6 by now; Niles had made it clear his promotion was for the duration only. He was still wearing khakis, with his jacket and dress shoes rolled up in the saddlebags. Probably ruined from rain and engine heat by now … “What are you guys, if I may ask? Army? Guard? I’m not familiar with your uniform.”
“No sir. Homeland Battalions.”
This was new. “So what’s the problem, Sergeant?”
She didn’t meet his eyes. In fact, hadn’t since he’d walked in. “The problem, sir, is that the militia in this pass is on the list as a suspect organization. Part of the Covenanters. The Midwest separatist movement.”
He blinked. “Well, all I have from them is that piece of paper. I didn’t know they were … mutineers, or whatever. Rebels?”
“The Rebels are to the south, sir. RECOs. Reconstituted Confederacy.”
“I see. Well, sorry I’m behind the times, but my leave’s expiring. I need to report in to my next command.”
“I don’t see any orders here, sir.” She shuffled the pile. “Do you have them with you?”
“They were telephone orders. From the CNO.”
“What is that, sir?” Still not meeting his eyes, clicking busily on a small tactical computer.
“The chief of naval operations. Admiral Barry Niles. I’m TAD to his office. After helping win the fucking war.”
He regretted that last crack; insulting her for her service at home wasn’t going to help. He apologized and explained again, trying not to sound impatient. But the sergeant was turned away, studying her screen. “Just one moment, sir,” she muttered.
At last she looked up. “We’ve been tracking you on FR, sir. Facial recognition. Since Front Royal. So we know who you are. You’re not on any red flag or watch list. At least the ones we have access to here. Homeland Security. Patriot Network. But you’re not on the District access list either. You don’t have a pass as a civilian resident. And you don’t have written orders assigning you to a command here.”
He took a breath. “You can look me up online, then. My service. My decorations.”
“Antiwa groups are very active online, sir. They attack our databases every day. We can’t trust anything on the internet.”
“So, let me guess … How do I get on this access list? To the District?”
“Your home command has to enter you.”
“Which they won’t do until I report in. Right?”
An impassive shrug was all he got back.
They regarded each other across the counter. An impasse. Finally he coughed into a fist. “Can I speak to your senior officer?”
“I’m OIC at this post, sir.”
“Then here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m going to get back on that bike and head east on 66. Toward the fucking Pentagon. Where my orders say to check in! If you feel like shooting me in the back, well, I’ve been shot at before. You can write me up for running the roadblock. If you feel you have to.”
For answer he got pursed lips and averted eyes. Then a reluctant “Forward together, patriot. But you’ll have to present an inoculation card.”
He didn’t have one of those either, and had to submit to a nasal spray that apparently was for the Chinese flu.
Back on the bike, gunning it, wheeling out into the exit lane. Locking eyes with the black-clad guard. Who was looking across toward the office. Where the sergeant stood, arms folded, in the doorway, scowling.
He wanted to hunch low over the bike’s handlebars, to present a smaller target, but forced himself to remain upright. Still, he didn’t feel safe until he was a mile down the road.
* * *
THE way grew more familiar with each passing mile. Cherrydale. Highland. Then the Potomac to his left, screened with woods. Roosevelt Island. More traffic now. Black sedans and SUVs, headed probably for the same destination as he. But very few civilian cars. The city seemed still asleep, even—he turned his wrist, glanced at the oil-smeared face of his Seiko—at 0600.
The National Cemetery to his left. Somewhere up there was the memorial to the Roosevelt Battle Group. Ten thousand sailors and marines and airmen, immolated in the opening hours of a war that had lasted nearly four years.
And one that was, apparently, still ripping America apart, to judge by what the sergeant had said back at what had looked very much like the entrance to a closed city in hostile territory.
Then, ahead, the gray granite walls of the fortress from which that war had been fought. The engine hesitated, cut out, started again, jerking him so hard he nearly lost the bike as he turned for the lot.
He sucked a deep breath. It felt good to be back in the military world. But then, why did he also feel nervous? What could they do to him, after all? Send him home? Make sure he couldn’t be sent to fight again?
Well, he’d done enough. If it was shitcan Dan time, he was ready. That old Navy saying: Every career ends with a failure to select.
He coasted up to the river entrance, steered into one of the motorcycle spaces, and shut down. Swung stiffened, nearly crippled legs off, staring up at the entrance.
Whatever they served him up, he was pretty sure he could take it.
* * *
IN the event, he had to get another dose of vaccine, a shot this time, since the version Homeland had given him hadn’t been approved by DoD. Then he had to cool his heels for two hours before he got to see the CNO’s flag secretary.
She was new, and didn’t seem to have any idea who he was. And of course since he was in a rumpled, oil-stained uniform, and probably stank of exhaust and sweat and too many days sleeping rough, he had to explain. Looking skeptical, she’d gone in to notify her boss.
And come out smiling. “He’ll be with you shortly, Admiral. I’m so sorry. I should have recognized your name. Task Force 91, right? Operation Rupture Plus?”
“That’s me.”
“I wish I could have been there. But some of us had to hold the fort here in DC.”
“I understand completely.” Dan forced a smile and got up, but staggered as a wave of dizziness rushed over him. From the dual vaccinations, probably.
“Are you all right, sir? Should I call—”
“Yeah. I’m fine. Just been … I’m fine.” He braced a finger against the bulkhead until the vertigo passed, then followed her into Niles’s office.
His old mentor, then enemy, then reluctant rabbi again, had lost a shocking amount of weight. Barry “Nick” Niles’s service dress blouse sagged loosely on a once-massive frame. His shirt collar gaped around his neck. His color seemed less that of a healthy African American than the hue and texture of gray wax. And he’d apparently gone to
the shaved-head look. But his first words, from behind his desk, were robust. “Where the hell have you been, Lenson?” he boomed, just like the old Niles.
Dan came to an awkward attention. “I had leave, Admiral.”
“That doesn’t mean you drop off the face of the planet. Where were you?” Niles squinted. Sniffed the air. “Do you smell gasoline?”
“I bought a motorcycle. My daughter was kidnapped. So I … I was trying to pick up her trail across country.”
The CNO nodded. “And did you?”
Dan swallowed, fighting a tickle in his throat and a sudden desire to weep. The dizziness peaked, then receded again, like a tide. He blinked rapidly, looking toward the shatterproof windows. “No. No, sir. I lost track of her in Wyoming. No telling where they went after that, or … what they did with her. There’s a body in Nebraska that … is … that may be her. I couldn’t make a positive identification.”
The CNO nodded heavily. Grunted. Muttered, after a moment, “Sorry to hear. I know it doesn’t help to hear it, but a lot of other people are missing relatives, friends, kids … two of my nephews, working oil out west, not a word since the laydown.”
“Things are confused out there, sir. They could just be in one of the camps.”
Niles waved his hope away and picked up a piece of paper. Seemed to remember Dan was standing, and pointed to a chair. No offer of an Atomic Fireball, as in the old days. The bowl was empty. Maybe they’d stopped making them during the war.
He sagged gratefully into the armchair. Cleared his throat, and tried to focus as Niles set the paper aside.
“You been home? Seen Blair yet?”
“No sir. Came straight here.”
“Uh-huh … uh-huh. Well, good work out there with Rupture, Dan. If I haven’t made that clear. If you hadn’t stopped the clock to build up your ammo and fuel reserves, then kept shoving when the going got rough, we’d have gotten kicked back into the China Sea.”
