by Payne, T. L.
“Why are you looking for them at the market?” Larry asked.
“I can’t really discuss that,” the woman replied.
Larry gestured behind the woman. “Well then, you can just turn around and head back the way you came.”
The woman’s brows knit together. “I can’t do that. It is very important for me to find this person. I assure you we aren’t looking for trouble with you.”
Maddie detected an urgency to her tone. She was trying hard to hide it, but she was desperate. Maddie would bet money on it. What was so important about this person they were looking for?
“Maybe not,” Larry said. “But it’s a dangerous world we live in these days, and we can’t be too careful. So, if you aren’t willing to be honest about your business here in the county, then we can only assume you’re up to no good.”
The woman turned to her companions. Neither of them looked eager to fight their way through. She looked from the cowboy to Dustin. “Are you in the military?”
Dustin stood more erect. “Hooah. 5th Engineer Battalion.”
“Are you stationed at Fort Leonard Wood?”
“I was. It’s no longer an active military base,” Dustin said.
The woman paused.
“Are you AWOL?”
Dustin laughed. “No, ma’am. I’m just on extended leave until we get a new commander-in-chief. You see, the person in charge of the military went and set himself up as a dictator. I ain’t following no dictator. I don’t care how much he’s paying.”
The woman turned her head slightly and gave him a sideways glance. “Are you for hire?”
The question seemed to catch Dustin off guard. He didn’t come back with his usual sarcastic remarks.
“Depends. Who’s doing the paying?”
“Colonel Ryan Sharp,” she said.
“Colonel? Military or law enforcement?” Dustin asked.
The cowboy looked up to the woman. “Military,” he said.
“Military?” Maddie asked.
“Whose military?” Larry asked.
“Colonel Sharp is with the 1st Cavalry Division out of Fort Hood,” the woman said.
“Fort Hood? What the hell is he doing all the way up here in Missouri?” Larry asked.
“That’s classified,” the woman said.
“I’m officially declassifying it,” Dustin said, stepping out of the woods behind the riders.
Chapter 6
Highway 63
Phelps County, Missouri
July 12th
Maddie leaned against the wagon, listening to the woman trying to convince Larry that she was a United States federal agent on official business. Maddie wasn’t sure. Parts of her story seemed plausible. Maddie desperately wanted to believe some remnant of the prior government was still in control, even if it was only Texas and Louisiana as the woman claimed.
“So, tell me again. This interim president, who elected him?” Larry asked. He stood with his feet spread apart and rifle slung across his chest, not quite pointing it at the cowboy but ready to respond if need be.
“President Latham was appointed by the majority of the remaining Congress of the United States,” the woman said.
“And you are CIA or what?” Larry’s tone was sarcastic. He obviously didn’t believe her.
“Listen, dude. Agent Stephens has told you all that she’s authorized to reveal. You can choose to believe her or not. We have a mission to complete, and you are hindering a federal investigation. That’s a crime. A federal crime,” Cowboy said over his saddle.
Maddie’s mind was whirling, trying to make sense of it all. It made sense that some of the previous government would’ve survived. Not all of them would’ve been in Washington, D.C. at the time of the nuclear attack on the capitol. But she did have trouble believing a delegation visiting El Salvador was now her country’s new leaders.
“What is President Latham doing to get the lights back on?” Maddie asked.
The man in the ballcap’s eyes lit up. He opened his mouth to speak, but a death stare from Agent Stephens shut him down.
“That is classified,” Stephens replied.
Maddie screwed up her face. She, too, was getting tired of the same answers from the woman. Maddie needed answers, and she wanted them now. She turned to Larry, whose jaw was clenched.
“You’re full of shit, lady. I don’t know why you think that bullshit story will earn you safe passage out here in flyover country, but you’re sadly mistaken,” Larry said.
Larry brought his rifle up and pointed it at the woman. The cowboy spun and leveled his rifle at Larry. Big mistake. Dustin had been slowly walking closer and closer to the trio as the conversation continued. Cowboy flinched as he suddenly felt the barrel of Dustin’s rifle in the middle of his back. His eyes widened, and he lowered his rifle, letting it dangle from its sling. He slowly raised his hands. The man in the ballcap gasped, and his hands flew into the air as well.
“Is this really necessary?” Agent Stephens asked, pointing toward Dustin.
Larry tilted his chin and looked down his nose. “Apparently it is, since you want to keep with that bullshit story instead of the truth. We’re reasonable people. Him not so much,” Larry said, nodding toward Dustin.
Dustin fought back a grin. He extended his middle finger in Larry’s direction.
Harding stepped forward. Maddie thought she caught something—some sort of recognition between the two—but it disappeared quickly. She looked toward Stephens, who blinked a few times and looked around at the group.
“Here’s what I want to know. If you’re on this important, classified mission, why the hell are you not traveling with a security detail?” Harding asked. “You appear to be intelligent. I’m having trouble believing you’d head out with just these two as security.”
“I’m not security,” Baseball Cap blurted, earning him another death stare from Stephens.
Stephens returned her focus to Harding. Maddie studied her. She was tall and slender but not thin like everyone else these days. She wore her brown hair in a tight bun. It looked clean, as did her nails. The blue button-up shirt she wore over her white tank top was wrinkled but was clean and almost looked new. No one wore clothes that fresh. Maddie’s eyes fell to the woman’s boots. The soles weren’t worn out like Maddie’s. The woman obviously hadn’t put hundreds of miles on them.
Stephens lowered her voice. “We were attacked. The rest of my team didn’t make it.”
Maddie drew in a deep breath. The dead man they’d found in the ditch must have been one of Stephens’s. From the look on Larry and the other’s faces, they were thinking the same thing.
“Attacked by whom?” Aims asked.
Maddie twisted to see where he was. He’d been so quiet she’d forgotten he was there.
Stephens hesitated.
“Who attacked you and killed your team?” Maddie asked.
“A group of well-armed and well-trained men,” Stephens replied flatly.
Maddie pivoted to get a better look at the cowboy. He had lowered his head and was staring at his boots. Dustin moved around to the side of him and backed toward the tree line.
I bet he ran. His body language says he feels guilt over the situation. Cowboy’s a coward!
“Whereabouts was that?” Aims asked, stepping away from the team of horses.
“Iron County,” Stephens said.
Maddie glanced at Larry. He cocked his head to the side then gave a half-shrug.
“That’s quite a ways from here,” Larry said, more to Aims than Stephens.
“Did one of your men have a tattoo of a grim reaper draped in the American flag?” Maddie asked.
“Yes. How did you know that?” Stephens asked.
Stephens gave a sideways glance to Cowboy.
Maddie held Larry’s gaze as she answered Stephens's question.
“Because we found him face down in a ditch yesterday,” Maddie said.
“He’s dead?” Stephens asked, glaring at C
owboy. Her expression spoke volumes.
“Yes. Shot in the back. It looked like he’d ridden some distance before dying. You say this attack happened in Iron County? About how long ago was that?” Larry asked.
Maddie studied Stephens's face. She was barely fazed by the news. She looked more pissed than sad.
“Two days. We got split up. Peterson and a few others were laying down suppressive fire so I could get away. We got cut off from them. They were surrounded.” Stephens swallowed hard. “Hogan and Collins manage to escape. We met up with them at our rally point. We waited twenty-four hours as agreed. The rest of the team never showed.”
She said it so business-like. Either she was lying, or she was one cold bitch. Even after all she’d been through these last nine months, Maddie doubted that she’d be able to relay such information without showing at least some emotion.
“Is that who you are looking for? The rest of your team?” Maddie asked.
Stephens glanced at her companions. “No. We ran into some trouble after that. We were stopped on the road by bandits. They took government property. We need to get it back.”
Larry stiffened.
“Bandits, you say. Were they dressed in all black and riding black horses?” Maddie asked, reading Larry’s mind.
“Yes. You know them?” Stephens asked. She shifted in her saddle and gave Baseball Cap a preemptive death stare. He looked away.
“We know of them,” Larry said.
Everyone knew of them. Nelson’s hired goons had brought chaos and destruction everywhere they rode. All of it sanctioned by their boss. Without law enforcement to track them down and put a stop to their reign of terror, they continued to pillage south-central Missouri.
“What did they take?” Dustin asked.
Stephens shifted to face him. “That’s classified.”
Dustin rolled his eyes. “I guess you won’t be wanting it back, then.”
“You know something? You know where it is?” she asked, her eyes brightening with hope.
Dustin smirked. “That’s classified.”
She offered Dustin the same death stare she’d given Baseball Cap, but to no effect. Dustin crossed the road and reached into the wagon for the water cup tied to the cooler. No one spoke as Dustin took a long drink. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and held to cup up to Stephens. “Want some?”
Stephens shook her head. “I want to know where to find those men. I need to reacquire our cargo.”
Larry glanced over to Cowboy and looked him up and down. “You’re going to need an army to reacquire that cargo. What the hell were you thinking traveling with a wagon full of gold?”
Maddie felt like she’d missed something. What led Larry to think the cargo was gold?
But Stephens looked like she’d been sucker-punched for a moment. She recovered quickly and raised her nose into the air. Was Larry right? Were they traveling with a load of gold? Why? What possible value would it have in this new world? Money couldn’t buy shit these days. Bullets and beans had become the new currency. If you had those, you were rich.
Larry raised his hand. “No. Don’t tell me. It’s classified.”
Stephens crossed her arms.
Larry was right. It was written all over Stephens’s face. How on earth had he guessed that?
“You must not want help locating it, then. I mean…” Dustin glanced over to Larry. “Larry, they might be a Russians or something.”
Stephens glared at Larry. “That shipment is vital to our national recovery. I have to get it back.” She shifted to focus on Dustin. “I can pay—if you know men for hire. I can pay well.”
Dustin’s bottom lip stuck out, and a smile spread across his face. He looked over his shoulder to Larry and then to Aims and Harding.
“I don’t have any use for gold,” Dustin said.
For a second, Stephens looked defeated.
“What about MREs? Do you have use for food?” she asked.
Dustin's eyes widened.
“Now you’re talking. How many? I don’t see where you could be carrying enough to make me want to risk my neck,” he said.
“They aren’t with me, but name your price. We’ll make it happen,” she said.
“Stephens,” Cowboy said.
“What, Hogan? Do you think you and Collins are going to track them down and take the gold from them? Just shut up.” She turned back to Dustin. “We have three days. I have to have that cargo back within three days.”
Aims moved from his concealed position behind the wagon, startling Maddie and causing her to slip off the edge of the pavement. She grabbed hold of the wagon to stop her slide down into the ditch.
“What happens in three days?” Aims asked, taking a step toward Stephens. “And don’t tell me that it’s classified. If you’re going to ask us to risk our lives, we need to know what’s at stake beyond a few MREs.”
Stephens stared at Aims. He held her gaze as she scrutinized him. From his appearance, she probably pegged him as a farmer with his overalls and long white beard. Maddie didn’t detect the same flicker of recognition she’d seen with Harding. Maybe she’d been wrong about it. It was conceivable that Stephens had met the FEMA regional director, but not his director of response and recovery.
Stephens pointed to the wagon. “Mind if I give my horse some water while I tell you what is at stake for the nation, Deputy Director Aims?”
Maddie stared at Stephens's fingernails as she sat on the back of the wagon. Her hands were folded in her lap. They appeared well-manicured. She hadn’t been pulling weeds, that much was clear. Maddie looked down at her own green-stained fingers. Dirt was caked under her very short nails. Maddie tried to guess how old Stephens was. It had become hard to determine a person's age these days. Starvation, stress, and hardship weathered a person far beyond their years. Stephens's skin looked perfect. She looked like she bathed regularly. Who still did that?
“The surviving members of congress settled in the US Embassy in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.” Stephens glanced at Dustin. “That’s in South America.”
Dustin cocked his head to the side and glared at her but said nothing. Oh, how she had underestimated him. Dustin may have looked like a dumb hillbilly with his floppy fishermen’s hat and dirty jeans half-tucked in his mud-soaked, square-toed cowboy boots, but he was anything but slow. That kid was smart. Maddie was surprised Stephens made snap judgments based upon appearance. She thought agents trained by the CIA would know not to underestimate anyone.
Dustin crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the side of the wagon.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, but where’d you get the gold, and why were you transporting it through middle-of-nowhere-Missouri?” Dustin asked.
Her head rotated slightly toward him. Her scalp glistened with sweat. She used the back of her hand to wipe her brow. As she rubbed her forehead, Maddie spotted a healing bruise on her left cheek.
“Why did it take so long for the congressional delegation to return to the United States?” Harding asked.
Stephens shifted to face him. She rotated her cup in her hands a few times and took a long drink before answering. “His military advisors and secret service agents advised against it. There wasn’t a way to secure a headquarters for him and the rest of the government. Traveling through Central America and Mexico is quite dangerous. They had to come by ship. All our ships were being utilized on the west coast. They came as soon as reasonably feasible.”
“Ships? I’d wondered what happened to all our ships and planes stationed outside the United States,” Maddie said.
“Most were destroyed in the fighting in the initial days after the war broke out. We launched missiles; other countries retaliated. It was quite devastating,” Stephens said. “Once it started, the deterrent of mutually-assured destruction fell apart.” She was quiet for a moment. She looked forlorn. “Once Texas was secured, the new government established its headquarters in Austin,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken.
&
nbsp; “The Governor of Texas didn’t mind?” Maddie asked.
“No. He’s dead.”
“So, back to the gold. What’s it for?” Dustin wasn’t giving up. He was like a dog with a bone.
Stephens drew in an exasperated breath and clenched her jaw. “Trade,” she said as she exhaled.
The corners of Dustin’s eyes crinkled, and he glanced back to Larry.
Larry gave a half-shrug, stroked his beard, and asked, “With whom? I mean, you can’t eat it. Who in their right mind is collecting gold these days?”
Stephens opened her mouth to answer but was cut short by the sound of gunfire.
Maddie dove behind the wagon, rolled, and brought her rifle up. Larry, Aims, and Dustin had already fanned out. Stephens and Cowboy scrambled beneath the wagon. Maddie lost sight of Ballcap and Harding.
“Can you see them, Dustin?” Larry called.
“Four. I see four,” Dustin said.
The horses were spooked by the gunfire. The wagon moved forward and back as they reared and lunged, trying to break away. Maddie moved to the front of the wagon and tried to grab the reins that had fallen between the rear of the horses and the front of the wagon. There was no way she was putting herself between the two. Stephens slid out from under the wagon and grabbed the reins. She reared back and yelled for Hogan to help her. He didn’t budge. Jacob appeared out of nowhere and jumped onto the seat. “Here,” he called down to Stephens, his hands outstretched.
She threw him the reins and dove to the side, rolled down the ditch, and quickly bounced back to her feet. Rounds slammed into the wagon as Jacob drove the horses down the road away from the battle that had commenced.
Within minutes, Maddie heard only sporadic gunfire. Larry and Dustin had two of the shooters cornered behind a rock with no place to go. Maddie cut through the thick undergrowth on the opposite side of the road and began to make her way toward them.
Dropping beside Larry, she asked, “Where’s he at?”
Larry pointed to an outcropping of rocks to their left. “You stay here with Dustin. I’ll go around and flank him. Moving!” Larry yelled, and Dustin opened fire on the shooter’s position as Larry disappeared into the woods to Maddie’s right. A few minutes later, she heard a double-tap followed by silence.
