Lee Harden Series | Book 5 | Unbowed

by Molles, D. J.

  Angela leaned in close enough that he could smell her. “What’s the backup plan here?”

  “I don’t even know,” Lee admitted.

  Angela’s gaze strayed past him to the people across from them. She was not bewildered or angry. Just resigned. “How’s it always come down to shit versus shit?”

  “Guess we’re lucky like that.” Lee sighed. “If you’ve got any ideas on how to exit with the least amount of shit, I’m all ears.”

  Angela’s eyes finally found their way back to Lee’s. They held no guile. No attempts to sway him one way or the other. When she spoke, it was just plain old, ungilded truth: “Well, I guess a big part of that’s up to you. Either you murder a whole settlement, or you decide to trust them.”

  “Both shit.”

  Angela nodded. “But you’re going to decide which shit sandwich you can stomach.”

  “And what if I decide to wipe them out?”

  Angela didn’t have the reaction that he thought she would have. In another place and time, she’d have become shocked, perhaps irate at the suggestion. Now she simply gave him a facial shrug. “I’ve known you for a long time, Lee. We both know what you’re capable of.”

  She said nothing more. She didn’t need to.

  It was plain to both of them: Lee was capable of many things, but wholesale slaughter of innocents wasn’t one of them. He’d lost a lot of himself in the void that the world had become. But he hadn’t lost his sense of right and wrong. He’d ridden the ragged edge of it, lived in the gray areas of morality. But he’d never truly crossed that line.

  The truth was, he couldn’t. Oh, he could entertain the thoughts. He could bitterly think about wrath and vengeance and the throwing away of human life. He could think about it. Maybe even imagine himself doing it.

  But he couldn’t. It was anathema to him. If he did it, then what was he even fighting against? If he massacred the people he didn’t trust, then this entire war was just a pissing match between him and Briggs. Nothing more than two despots slugging it out.

  “Well.” Lee sniffed, smudging his nose with a finger. “I guess we know which shit sandwich we’ll be dining on.”

  Angela gave him a single nod. “But they don’t know that.”

  “No, they don’t. And I intend to use that element of doubt to come out with the best deal I possibly can.” He managed a careworn smile. “Maybe I can get a little mayo on my shit sandwich.”

  She smiled back at him, and for a brief moment, they were just two tired people at the end of their ropes, smiling against the pain, each taking a bit of strength from the other. Just enough to keep hanging on.

  A Marine trotted up and whispered rapidly to Brinly.

  The major nodded, then turned to Lee. “We got a call.” An arched eyebrow. “From your boy.”

  Lee understood. Nodded to release Brinly, who immediately stepped away to take the call.

  Good. At least there was some forward motion. He didn’t know what Sam was going to report. He could only assume it would be yet another conundrum to overcome. But at least Sam was still alive, still in Greeley. He hadn’t been found out. The worst hadn’t happened. And that was a good thing.

  “Alright,” a voice snapped from behind him.

  Lee turned, and found Cass approaching again, her advisors trailing her.

  Lee struck all humanity from his face. Became the callous asshole again. We all have to play our roles. “Have you come to a decision?”

  Cass’s eyes were squinted, though the dawn light wasn’t strong. Squinting as though trying to peer through a fog. Trying to determine the truth in all the subterfuge. “First off, you need to know that Vici had nothing to do with what happened last night. I can’t control the actions of every single person. If I could, I would have stopped it from happening. Me and my people are not allied with Greeley, or Cornerstone. And…” she swallowed. “I apologize. On behalf of my people.”

  Lee waved it away. “That’s a wonderful sentiment, but pointless.”

  “It’s not pointless,” she said with an ill-concealed snarl. “I say it not to beg or plead. I say it because it’s true. A handful of people that represent me did something stupid last night. They paid for it with their lives, but it is still important that you understand that me and every person behind me condemns that action.”

  “Cass,” Lee sighed. “You can’t possibly speak for every damn person in Vici. If you knew what they all were thinking, then you would’ve known what was going down last night. So don’t try to present the facts as though all the people behind you are of one mind.”

  “No, maybe they’re not. And frankly, staring at your goddamned horde, ready to rip us to shreds, there’s probably a lot of people behind me that don’t view you in the most friendly light right now.”

  Lee shrugged. “I don’t really care how they view me. I only care what actions they’re going to take. I only care what actions you’re going to take that’ll make me feel warm and fuzzy enough inside that I can stand to turn my back on you.”

  Cass shifted her feet. “Let’s get a few things straight. Number one: You’re not coming into my town. I get it—you have the numbers, you have the firepower, and you could wipe the floor with us. I hope that you won’t. But I’m not giving you carte blanche to stride in and search or interrogate my people to the point that you might feel comfortable, which probably wouldn’t happen anyways, as you seem determined to be mistrustful.”

  Lee arched an eyebrow. “That right?”

  Cass raised her chin. “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “Okay. What’s number two?”

  Cass seemed momentarily surprised that her defiance wasn’t met with a stronger reaction. She looked unsure of herself for a moment, but recovered quickly. “Number two: As a show of goodwill, we will commit one hundred fighters to your cause.”

  Lee made a face. “One hundred fighters that I can’t fully trust.”

  “Maybe not. Do you know how warring kingdoms used to do this in the past?”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “They’d exchange hostages. One side would send someone important to live in the other kingdom. The understanding being, that if the trust between them was ever broken, the hostage would pay the price.”

  “So if Vici ever pulls some shady shit on me, you’re giving me the go ahead to execute the hundred people.”

  Cass blanched. “No. No, that’s not what I’m saying. The fighters are a show of goodwill.” She swallowed again. “The hostage is me.”

  Perhaps Cass expected there to be more haggling. She seemed surprised when Lee considered it for the span of two or three seconds, then nodded and stuck out his hand.

  “Deal,” he said.

  Cass frowned at him. Then looked at the outstretched hand.

  “Should I demand more from you?” Lee asked.

  Cass quickly took his hand and gave it a firm pump. “No. That’s the deal. We have a deal.”

  “Good,” Lee said, as she released his hand. “Because we need to get mobile again. I’ll give you one hour to do what you need to do. Do your hundred fighters have transportation?”

  Cass blinked rapidly. “We only have a few working trucks. They’re needed here in Vici.”

  “Fine,” Lee waved a dismissive hand. “We’ll make room for them. We’ll remain right here. We’re mobile in sixty minutes.”

  Without waiting for any further conversation, Lee turned away from her and began striding back to the waiting line of vehicles. Angela fell into step with him.

  “Well, look at that,” she commented wryly. “You got mayo and ketchup. Lucky you.”

  Lee smirked. “It’s the best outcome we could’ve hoped for. Minimal concessions on our part.”

  “God, is every settlement going to be like this?”

  “Only if they try to kill us in the middle of the night.”

  “Well, you just never know. You’re such a popular guy.”

  “I know. People can hardly contain themselves.�
�

  They walked in a companionable silence back towards the command MATV. For a moment, despite the exhaustion and the anxiety and the ever-present undercurrent of anger, Lee felt peaceful.

  He looked to Angela, as though she’d said something surprising. She didn’t seem to notice him looking. She walked along with a half-smirk on her face, still darkly amused by the brief banter between them.

  He shared her subtle expression and looked forward again, the moment fading quickly in the rush of things to be done.

  Brinly had already disconnected the satphone by the time they reached him. His expression was serious, but not to the level that Lee felt any worry. Brinly handed the satphone off to a Marine lieutenant and turned to face Lee and Angela.

  “Sam and his crew are…” there was a hesitation before the next word. “Safe.”

  Lee frowned.

  Brinly shook his head. “I’ll bring you up to speed once we’re rolling. There’s nothing that requires our urgent attention.” He nodded towards Vici. “What are we doing with them?”

  Lee leaned an elbow on the grill of the MATV. “We’ve got a hundred volunteer fighters, plus Cass, as—” he put up air quotes “—a hostage. Presumably to keep Vici from pulling any shady shit behind our back.”

  Brinly quirked an eyebrow. “Sounds good. Not sure how it’ll play out in practice.”

  Lee allowed it with a nod. “It’s the best we can hope for.”

  Angela put her hands in her pockets. “How are we going to integrate them?”

  Lee let his gaze wander over to Vici, the conglomeration of people milling back towards their homes. Some of those people, Lee was sure, would be the volunteers. “I don’t want them separated. I want them in existing squads. Pull a hundred of our people out and have them form a new set of squads. The space they create will be filled by the new volunteers. Give the new people grunt work—drivers, or whatever. Something that limits their opportunity to fuck up.” Lee glanced at Angela. “Cass should stay with us, as interim command. I’d like her people to see her as in charge, even though she won’t be. That’ll make it easier to control them if a dispute arises.”

  Brinly considered his orders with pursed lips, then nodded. “Sounds good to me. I’ll get it working.”

  “So,” Angela sighed. “Who do we visit next?”

  “I’d like to hear Cass on some recommendations,” Lee said. “She probably won’t like it at first, but she might be a valuable tool in getting us in the door with others, if she knows them.”

  Angela made a face. “Yeah, I don’t think she’ll like it.”

  Lee shrugged. “She doesn’t have to. But time is short, and we’re moving on Greeley.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  ─▬▬▬─

  A MIDNIGHT CHAT

  It was a collection of settlements, scattered along the Arkansas River. The information that Abe had on them was minimal, but the one he was looking at through a high-powered scope was La Junta.

  Menendez and Breckenridge, having been the closest to Tex, and Tex having been in contact with Coordinators from other states, had given Abe what they knew about active settlements. The intelligence, unfortunately, didn’t extend much into Colorado, where they currently were.

  Colorado, Abe thought, blinking and pulling out of the scope for a moment to stretch his neck. It was weird to be here. A place that should feel like the belly of the beast, like infiltrating Germany circa 1945. Instead, it just felt like every place else they’d been.

  Their luck after Mosquero hadn’t improved. The few settlements along their route into Colorado had been ghost towns. Whether or not Cornerstone came through those towns, or if the people had simply given up, or if they’d all fled to Greeley, Abe didn’t know.

  All he knew was that he was now staring at the town where he was supposed to meet up with Lee in the next few days, and he didn’t have single extra fighter to show for his journey.

  On the plus side, because he hadn’t had to deal with convincing any settlements to back their invasion of Greeley, they’d made good time.

  Since they were ahead of schedule, Abe felt comfortable doing a little extra recon on La Junta to determine if it was a place they should even go into. So far, the signs were hopeful.

  “No sign of Cornerstone,” Abe commented, noting that his tongue was dry. He fished for the bottle of water in his day pack that lay at his side. “I am seeing civilian activity. Nominal amount of people with guns. None of them look like military.”

  Menendez, stationed at his side in the baking morning sun, squeegeed sweat from his brow with a hand and nodded. “Doesn’t mean they’re not loyal to Briggs.”

  Abe undid the cap on the water bottle and took a slow sip, letting the liquid linger on his tongue. He swallowed. “No, it doesn’t.” He shoved the water bottle under his pack so the sun wouldn’t heat it up. Propped himself on his elbows. “We’re three days ahead of schedule. I don’t want to waste time that we don’t have, but there’s also no need to rush into anything.”

  Menendez shifted his position in the dusty top of the tiny hill they occupied. It was the only position in all this flatness that gave them any sort of overwatch on La Junta, but it placed them nearly a mile out. The distance made gathering details hazy.

  “You think we’ll get anything more by sitting out here for another day?” Menendez asked.

  Abe shrugged, settled back over the scoped rifle and rested his chin on the stock. “Maybe not. The intel Tex had on La Junta was minimal. The Colorado Coordinator is with Briggs, as far as we know, which is a mark against them. But if we sit around and wait for evidence of them working with Greeley we might just be wasting our time.”

  “Any reason to believe Cornerstone might’ve passed them over?” Menendez asked. “They haven’t exactly pulled their punches on any other settlement.”

  Abe felt his stomach tighten at those words. He was not one to relive the past—it remained behind where it belonged. But the abject cruelty bothered him. The images from Mosquero drifted through his brain, making his spit taste sour.

  “Could be the size of the settlement,” Abe noted. “La Junta is pretty big. Mosquero was tiny. Tiny towns can’t defend themselves. It’d be hard to wipe out a settlement like La Junta.”

  “If they’d told Cornerstone to go fuck themselves, don’t you think Cornerstone would’ve come back with a few choppers at least?”

  “The way I hear it, they put every last drop of aviation fuel into taking down the UES. I don’t think they can field aircraft at this point.”

  “Still leaves us at square one. We don’t know whether La Junta is still here because Greeley doesn’t have the manpower to pacify a settlement of that size, or because they’re allied with Briggs.”

  “The leader here—the Reeves guy…”

  “Jonathan Reeves.”

  “Right. Did Tex ever talk about his political leanings?”

  Menendez shook his head. “All the information we had on Colorado settlements was third hand. Tex heard it from Cheech, who heard it from people passing through. And La Junta in particular was never really mentioned outside of the fact that it’s here, and it’s run by a guy named Jonathan Reeves.”

  “Reeves.” Abe consulted a scrawl of penwork on a scrap of paper taped to the rifle stock. “Black male, tall, skinny, bald.” He shook his head. “That could describe a dozen people down there. And there’s no telling if Reeves is even still in charge of this settlement. Tex’s information might be out of date by now.”

  “If you watch long enough, I think he’ll make himself known.” Menendez smirked. “He’ll be the one doing all the delegating.”

  “Be real hard to make a positive ID. And besides, we can’t just waltz in and start chatting him up, even if we could ID him properly.”

  “Maybe not. But, correct me if I’m wrong, I see a very porous perimeter.”

  Abe considered that with a frown. “You’re not wrong.”

  “Settlement like La Junta, they�
�re comfortable because of their size. They’ve got their attention on large actions and teepio incursions.”

  Abe squinted sideways at Menendez. “But not necessarily small, stealthy incursions.”

  Menendez smiled. “And that’s something we’re good at.”

  Abe looked back at the town over top of the scope. “Lot of ways that could go wrong.”

  “Lot of ways for it to go wrong every other way, too. Small scale infiltration mitigates the risk to our entire team. Gives us the best chance of getting some honest answers.”

  “We wouldn’t even know where to begin looking for Reeves.”

  “Maybe so. But I bet we could find out.”

  Abe chuffed softly, then settled back into the scope. The heat mirage made the image of La Junta shimmer and waver in disorienting patterns. “Yeah, I bet we could.”

  ***

  They waited until dark.

  Sitting cross-legged at the base of a scrubby bush, ensconced by the dark foliage, Abe sank into a version of himself he kept locked away, only to be released when absolutely necessary.

  You couldn’t live your life like an animal. Human life required humanity. At different times, logic, forward thinking, mercy, compassion.

  None of those things were useful at the moment. And so Abe let the savage, half-starved, blood-hungry animal out of the depths where he languished during the daylight. But it was night now. It was time for the animal.

  So Abe let it come, but kept a tether to his humanity, like a lifeline, like a ripcord to be pulled the second things got too out of hand. Because, ultimately, his mission was not destruction.

  An odd line to walk, but Abe was capable. He’d done it before.

  He leaned forward from his meditative pose, peering through the foliage. The leaves tickled his face. He did not do what humans did and brush them away. He remained cold and steady, eyes wide to let in the starlight, fixated on the settlement below.

  A few electric lights burned still, but the settlement did not seem to have electricity to burn. What light there was seemed to be from dim solar lanterns. Some candles that stood out mournfully in the blackness. Even those steadily winked away, the people below settling down for the night. A primitive existence—down with the sun, and up with it as well.