“And now half of those people want to fight?” Lee questioned.
Paul frowned at him. “Look. I was told you were asking for help. But you seem to have a lot of questions. Are we not on the same page?”
It was Angela that answered. “Gentlemen, Major Harden is a cautious individual, and he has every right to be so. I’m sure you can understand—it takes a lot of trust, and a lot of circumspection. That’s Major Harden’s job.”
“Right,” Paul bobbed his head. “I get that.”
“And do you understand what we’re asking for?” Angela pressed.
“Yeah. You’re asking for fighters.”
“Great. And do those people that want to fight, do they understand what that means?”
Paul relaxed a bit, a knowing expression coming over his face, as though he had finally decoded the thread of conflict between them. “Ma’am. Sir. Let me explain something to you. This ain’t about some missing cattle and grain. Sure, that’s what it’s about on the surface. But there’s history behind why that hit us so hard.”
Paul wiped sweat from his hairline. Wiped his fingers on his pants. “What we have? We worked hard for. Those cattle we lost? That’s years’ worth of work. All that grain they took? That’s more years. And do you know what happened in those years? People starved. We had an outbreak of something—still don’t know what the fuck it was—but a lot of people got sick, and we didn’t have enough food to keep them strong. We lost a lot of people two winters ago.” He paused, a thin scribble of emotion going across his face. “Lot of kids.”
He took a deep breath and centered himself. “What we had? The stuff that they took? That was our lifeline. That was what we worked hard for to make sure we didn’t have another bad year. To make sure we didn’t have to bury two dozen kids out back of the town and stack up piles of rocks over their graves so the infected couldn’t dig them up and eat them.”
The smiles were gone now. Paul and Stephen looked at Lee, and the hardness in their eyes was something that Lee knew intimately. It was a connection between them. Something only people who had lived through the end of the world and paid for their survival in blood and tears could understand.
“So if you’re wondering why a hundred and fifty people are willing to fight over some cows and some grain? You’re right. They’re not fighting for that. They’re fighting for the fact that our chance at survival was taken away from us. That we have to face another bad year now, with not enough to go around, and, frankly, everyone’s terrified. Because they remember the last time. That security that everyone in Lakin worked so hard to establish? It got stolen from them by some two-bit dictator that calls himself the president.
“So, if what you’re really asking me is ‘are those hundred and fifty people willing to die to take down Greeley?’” Paul’s eyes flashed hot. “Then my answer is yes. Yes, they are. And so am I. And so is Stephen. If it’s a fight you’re offering, one with even just a hint of a possibility of success? Then you got yourself some people to fight it.”
Lee made eye contact with Paul, and then Stephen, and finally, a nod of respect to Cass, who had a slightly smug look on her face. “That’s all I needed to hear, gentlemen.” Lee glanced skyward. “Daylight’s burning. And we have places to be.”
Paul looked confused. “Wait. You’re not staying?”
Lee shook his head. “No. And neither are you. If you want in on this, then get your people mobile. We’re going to move in one hour. We got a town in Colorado where we’re meeting some more friends.”
Stephen looked uncomfortable. “Sir, I know you got your own timeline to keep, but a lot of the folks that are coming have families they’d like to say goodbye to. And we haven’t exactly worked out the kinks of who we’re leaving in charge.”
“Two hours then?” Lee offered.
Angela touched his arm, giving him a quick, stern look. “Lee. It’s just after twelve. We can make it to Abe in a few hours. Dusk isn’t until almost nine.”
Lee made a disgruntled face, but didn’t object.
Angela looked to Paul and Stephen. “We’re mobile by six o’clock. Your people have until then to get ready.”
Paul nodded, though he still looked unsure. “Okay. I guess we can work with that.” He jerked his head at the convoy stretching out behind Lee. “Your people coming in? We don’t have much to spare, but—”
“No,” Lee cut him off. “We have our own shit to handle.”
“Gotcha.” Paul looked around awkwardly, like he wasn’t sure what was next. “Well, I guess we’ll head back.”
“Six o’clock,” Lee stated.
“Right. Six o’clock.”
Paul and Stephen retreated to their sedan. Lee, Angela and Cass watched them until the doors closed, at which point Cass turned on Lee with a glower.
“Christ, Lee. These people are doing you a favor. You can’t give them the night?”
Lee pulled his head back like Cass had said something truly outrageous. “They’re not doing me a favor, I’m giving them an opportunity. They want to keep being Greeley’s bitch, they’re welcome to do so.”
Cass folded her arms over her chest. “You are one salty asshole, you know that?”
“He knows,” Angela griped, turning Lee towards the convoy with a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Alright, two doses of good news. Now for the bad.”
“But of course.”
They started walking back down the line of vehicles, their pace unhurried. Cass walked with them. Lee didn’t mind. She might as well hear what they were up against. It might make it easier for her to understand the choices Lee would have to make.
“Food and water,” Angela said. “Those are the problems.”
“Weapons, ammo, and ordnance?”
“No, we’re good on that. If you consider a rifle and two mags good. And some folks only have pistols. Ordnance is spread thin—pretty much just the soldiers and Marines.”
Lee nodded. It was best to leave the explosives in the hands of people that didn’t require additional training to use them. The soldiers and Marines were Lee’s heavy hitters. He’d planned for that. As for the rest of his fighters…
“A rifle or pistol with a spare mag.” Lee clucked his tongue. “It ain’t much, but I can work around it. What’s the situation with the water and food?”
“The situation is…there’s not enough.”
“Put it in terms of time for me.”
“Two days.”
“Really?” Lee grimaced. That was less than he’d thought, but he wasn’t truly surprised. These issues were to be expected.
“When we left the refinery, we had stores that might’ve held up for a few weeks. But after Triprock and Vici, that got stretched pretty thin by the newcomers.”
That was the price you paid to have an army at your back, Lee supposed. Even one so ad hoc as this.
“In two days, we’ll be completely tapped,” Angela continued. “The squads will still have whatever reserves they’ve got in their packs, but that won’t be much. It might buy them another day at best.”
Lee stopped in the middle of the dusty road, between the MATV and the rest of the convoy. “The squads need to keep what they have for the assault. Which means we need to be hitting Greeley in two days’ time.”
An army runs on its stomach. It was an old adage, but a true one. Something that Western militaries hadn’t really had to worry about for a long time. But they’d been kicked back to the 1800s now. If they hit Greeley with several hundred half-trained and half-starved fighters, Lee could only imagine how that would go down. The soldiers and Marines would likely stay on task. The less disciplined guerillas would get distracted by looting opportunities. The more time they spent trying to find food, the less time they’d spend reaching Lee’s strategic objectives.
Angela looked pensively out at the hundreds of people standing outside of their vehicles, cluttering the roadway. “Do you think they know they’ll be fighting for their lives in forty-eight hours?”
/>
It was a strange thought, Lee supposed. For them, at least. It was easy to agree to a fight when it was in some nebulous future. But when the clock ticked down and it was go-time, the pucker factor would turn their guts to water.
“These are hard people,” Lee said. “Let’s not forget that. They’ve been through the wringer and come out swinging on the other side.”
“Who you trying to convince?” Angela murmured. “Me, or you?”
Lee sighed. “Me, I guess.”
“And are you convinced?”
He pursed his lips. “I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”
No one spoke for a long moment.
Lee simmered over the logistics. Beans and bullets. By all reports, Greeley wasn’t much better off. But they still held the advantage. They still held the fixed position, and even with Lee’s numbers swelled from the last few settlements, they were now likely on par with each other, as far as fighters.
But Greeley had more food, and more bullets. Time was on their side, whereas Lee was up against the clock. The longer it took him to make headway into Greeley, the hungrier, and more dehydrated his people would become. Not to mention the vast majority of them would be out of ammunition in the first ten minutes of fighting.
If he had any other option, he might’ve taken it. Might have called a halt to the whole plan in favor of getting his army better fed, and better equipped. But where would they find it? They’d already emptied out as many Project Hometown bunkers as they had access to.
No, there wasn’t another option.
Angela seemed to have shared his train of thoughts. “I guess it’s like you always say, Lee.”
He glanced at her. “What’s that?”
Angela nodded grimly at their cobbled-together army. “It’s do or die time.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
─▬▬▬─
LIBERATORS
The ration lines in Greeley didn’t give a shit if you were third shift. They were open from 10:00 to 15:00, and if you weren’t there, then oh well.
Sam got in line just after two, which he hoped would give him just enough time to make it through the line before they closed promptly at three. The people running the ration line would close it down right in front of you, like they had urgent business elsewhere.
As hungry as he was, it was a sick, unappetizing sort of hollowness, rather than the type of hunger that makes you want to stuff your face. More the type of hunger where you plod into it, choking the food down because you know you need it.
And food wasn’t what he was really here for.
Gabriella had called the previous meeting. And maybe she meant what she said, or maybe she was full of shit. There was no way for Sam to know. But he was relatively certain that the squad leaders he’d talked to at that meeting had no ulterior motives, and were genuine in their grievances with Greeley.
And Sam could work with that.
A ration line was a good place to foment revolt. No one liked having to wait for hours with their hat in hand. It made you start to think about inequities. Made you start to think about what you might be willing to do to correct them.
Sam’s squad were distributed around the ration line, but not in it. They hung around street corners, and walked innocently around blocks, all the while keeping their eye on Sam, while he kept his eye on the crowd, and identified the people he was looking for.
Of the ten squad leaders at the meeting with Gabriella, Sam had noted that eight of them were third-shifters, just like himself. He’d reasonably intuited that they’d try to get in line for rations as late as possible to afford themselves the most sleep. And he’d been correct.
In fact, he’d already spotted all of the third-shifters. Except Nolan. Sam searched the line several times to see if he’d only missed the man, but no, Nolan wasn’t there.
Well. That was fine by Sam.
As the line gradually shuffled forward, Sam waited for those squad leaders to make it to the distribution table, receive their box of rations—as squad leaders, they were permitted to receive the rations for their entire squad—and begin to walk away.
As the first of those squad leaders made it to the distribution table, Sam scanned the edges of the crowded parking lot and made eye contact with Jones. He gave Jones a single nod, and jerked his eyes meaningfully at the squad leader at the front of the line.
As the squad leader hefted a cardboard crate and turned away, Jones stepped out from the sidewalk where he’d stationed himself, and casually approached them.
Jones fell into step with the man. He was middle-aged, and had an early head of gray hair, and careful, watchful eyes. He saw Jones coming and stiffened up, but kept walking.
“What do you want, man?” the squad leader asked, a little defensively, perhaps wondering if Jones was going to try to beg rations off of his meager stash.
“I’m with Sam Balawi,” Jones said, his tone calm and even. Not too secretive, not to loud. “I believe you met him last night.”
A slight stutter in the man’s steps. A cautious sidelong look. A slight tremor worked its way through the man’s features.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man stammered.
Jones ignored that—he’d figured it was coming. “You know the burned out three story office building over on the western perimeter?”
A swallow. “Maybe.”
“Sam wants to meet. Tonight. Twenty-one hundred.”
The man looked confused.
“That’s nine o’clock,” Jones clarified with a sigh.
“Look man, I don’t know you, and I’m not going to meet anyone anywhere.”
“Stop.” Jones held out a hand like a crossing arm, forcing the squad leader to halt. Jones nodded in the direction of Sam. “Take a look.”
The man blinked a few times, then turned slowly and cast his gaze down the ration line. Sam stood there, looking back at the squad leader. When their eyes connected, Sam gave a minimal nod, then faced forward.
“You can trust us,” Jones said. “Something big is coming down the pipe. If you want to be a part of it, be at the burned out building at nine o’clock.”
And with that, Jones disengaged with the man and walked back to his post.
By the time Sam made it to the front of the line, his squad had individually made contact with all nine of the dissidents he’d identified. Every time it happened, his heart had jumped into his throat, wondering if any one of them might cause a scene, but none of them did.
Were they willing to meet? How many would actually show up at nine o’clock? Would Sam and his squad be there by themselves? Or would they be met with a welcoming party of Cornerstone operatives?
Fortune favors the bold, Sam reminded himself, as a battered plastic crate half filled with mystery packages was pushed into his hands. Gotta risk big to win big.
He hefted the crate. It was light. Was this really enough food for an entire squad?
He smiled at the woman in the distribution line. “Thanks.”
She barely glanced at him. “Yeah, sure. Move along.”
***
In the waning hours of daylight, Captain Perry Griffin stood outside of the Tahoe in which he’d driven across half of America, and looked out into the distance north of him.
As it turned out, it wasn’t hard to track Lee Harden’s movements. On these dusty, abandoned roads, the passage of hundreds of vehicles was obvious. They left a wake of evidence behind them—tire tracks being the most evident, but he could see where they’d stopped, too. Wherever they’d stopped, there were footprints all over the place, criss-crossing and trampling over each other and through the brush on the sides of the road where piles of human shit could be found, swarmed by flies.
You couldn’t hide the movement of an army.
And the more that Griffin had observed, the more certain he was that Lee had an army.
They had stopped here, Griffin could see. And smell.
Beside him, Mr. Smith pointed up the roa
d. “It keeps going.” The trampled brush to either side of the road—evidence of Lee Harden’s convoy having stopped here—extended for quite a ways. “Fuck me. That’s a long ass convoy.”
“There’s your missing people from Butler,” Griffin noted, frowning into the distance. “And I think we can safely assume what happened to the people from Triple Rocker Ranch.”
“How many do you think he has?”
“I don’t know. Enough to cause trouble for Greeley, if that’s where he’s heading.” Griffin waved a hand at the tire tracks. “And if his goal was to mount a decentralized insurgency, they wouldn’t be in one big jumble.” Griffin spat off to the side. “He’s doing exactly what we did to him. This is his invasion force.”
“Mostly civilians.”
Griffin gave Mr. Smith a contemptuous glare. “So’s the majority of Greeley’s defenses at this point. The active troops that know their ass from a hole in the ground are right behind us. Briggs shoved them all into the UES and left himself open. We both know it, and so does Lee.”
Mr. Smith ignored Griffin’s look and put his hands on his hips. “President Briggs is aware of the situation. And he still has a large contingent of Cornerstone in Greeley.” Mr. Smith nodded to the roadway. “Why’d they stop here?”
“Vici,” Griffin said. “I’ve got it highlighted on the map. It’s another settlement, a few miles ahead.”
Mr. Smith’s face darkened. “You think they joined up with him like Triple Rocker Ranch?”
“We won’t know until we ask,” Griffin said, turning back towards the convoy of military vehicles and technicals behind him. He stepped to the side of the Tahoe where Lieutenant Paige sat in the back, his arm out the open window. “Ron, get everyone mobile again. We’re going to head right into Vici. Show of force. Guns out. Don’t take any shit from anyone.” Griffin held up a hand. “But no stupidity. Standard ROE—don’t start shooting unless there’s a threat.”
“Roger that,” Paige replied, settling back into his seat and grabbing the command-channel radio.
Lee Harden Series | Book 5 | Unbowed Page 28
