Cassy let out a long breath between clenched teeth, then finally spoke. All eyes were on her. “General… Mr. President… I accept, and deeply appreciate your confidence, but I have certain firm requests.”
“By all means, if it’s possible, I’ll meet your requests.” Taggart smiled, but it was tight-lipped. His eyes looked kind, however. Maybe he felt the burden of responsibility as much as she did. That was a novel thought. But she realized it was probable he did understand.
Cassy looked at Taggart intently for a moment, and for the first time, she saw how bedraggled he looked. Exhausted, with a faint hint of gray starting in his close-cropped hair. Yes, the man knew precisely how she felt about this. She let out a sigh.
“Very well. Firstly, I’ll need our training to begin after evening chow—anytime after seventeen hundred hours will do.”
“Our chow is a bit later. Will eighteen-hundred hours be okay?”
Cassy nodded. “Yes. Secondly, I’ll need you to provide the manpower for the Deputy Secretary to put the things I’ll teach him into action quickly. As you say, spring is coming on fast. Preparation takes a lot of digging, in the beginning—and then cutting starts from the food-producing trees. You’ll need to make a survey of the fruit and nut trees in your area right away, find out what grows well locally and find new starts if the invaders destroyed existing orchards. That can be done while your man is in training and then passing the training on to others. And then there’s the design work, which depends on the local terrain.”
Cassy went on with her list. Gather all the shovels and picks they can find. Seeds. Hay. The list was endless, and Eagan nodded dutifully as he wrote it all down.
When she ran out of steam, Taggart said, “Very well, Cassy. Your second, here, can consult on any problems. Is there anything else you need in order to make all this happen?”
Cassy felt her stomach flip. She had saved the best for last. Her marketing training before the war had taught her to get the easy yesses in the beginning, then ask for the hard things. And here she went. “Lastly, I request that you send two companies of troops to us. One under my direct command, or rather Michael’s, and one to divide among the other enclaves. The more our people work with yours, the easier an eventual integration will be. We can cross-train between your troops and ours, and we will all be stronger for it.”
Taggart didn’t bat an eyelash. For a long moment, he stared silently at the camera. Just when Cassy thought he was going to balk, he nodded once, a curt motion. “You will provide for their ammunition, food, and other necessary gear, of course?”
Cassy felt a flood of relief wash over her. Two companies of troops, already armed and experienced fighters even if they weren’t his ex-military people. She felt the odds of surviving this spring rising even as she nodded back. Her mind was already elsewhere tallying odds and considering deployments. She knew General Houle was sending a battalion through her territory in dribs and drabs gathering them to the north and supposedly awaiting Taggart’s arrival with a second battalion. Now she felt confident they could be repelled if needed, at least until Houle sent his own vanguard at them from the Mountain. They’d be able to give the Empire a fight they had never expected when their troops showed up, she thought with satisfaction.
But the general had asked her a question. “Yes sir, I think we can make this work. It has been an honor to meet and get such a positive measure of your plans. I thank you for giving us so much time.” She turned to the envoys. “Do any of you have questions at this point?”
The envoy from Liz Town raised his hand. “I do.” Cassy nodded. “I’m Liz Town, General Taggart. What I want to know is, what do we call you? General, or Mr. President, or what?”
Taggart broke into an obviously spontaneous laugh. “When you feed me a line like that, all I can say is”—he gave a Groucho Marx eyebrow waggle—“call me whatever you like, just don’t call me late for chow.”
The room erupted in laughter, and Eagan could be seen on the screen, grinning behind the general. On that cheerful note, Ethan cut the connection and the meeting disbanded. Cider and a meal awaited everyone in the kitchen, the work of Grandma Mandy, Cassy’s daughter Brianna, and Brianna’s younger friend Kaitlyn. The envoys were chattering and getting to know each other as they followed little Kaitlyn into the kitchen to pick up their trays.
- 2 -
0700 HOURS - ZERO DAY +188
SMOKE STILL ROSE from the corpse of Cincinnati as Samuel Pease looked at it from the passenger seat of an ancient Jeep. The damn thing still ran despite the EMPs and was as old as his parents. The thought of his parents sent a shiver down his spin, and a wave of sorrow and regret tinged with anger.
He had made it to their house all right, after the EMPs, but not soon enough. When he arrived with his accidental companions, Mike and Brett, the place had been ransacked and his parents were dead—stabbed to death in the old yellow kitchen over whatever scraps of food had remained. In that whole neighborhood of Chesterbrook, what little hadn’t been burnt down had been ravaged.
Samuel persuaded his companions to head with him back home to Decatur, right outside Fort Wayne. Over five hundred miles in under a month, on foot. Somewhere in Ohio outside Lima, he and Brett had decided that pansy-ass Mike was the weakest link, and they had killed him. Spent two days smoking the meat they had carved off Mike while they ate his heart and liver, and promised each other they’d never speak of that horrible time again.
In the driver’s seat, Brett drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “You thinking about the Hell Run again, boss? Or your parents?”
“Both. How’d you know?” Samuel asked. “And I told you, it’s Captain now, not boss.”
“Sure, Captain. Can this sergeant speak freely, Sam?” Brett grinned sardonically, still drumming his fingers.
“Sure.” Samuel clenched his jaw and resisted the urge to just kill Brett. The man had never looked afraid of Samuel, and that was a pisser. After everything they had been through together over five-hundred miles of raping, looting, and killing, the asshole ought to have a bit more respect for Sam Pease, because dammit, Samuel Pease was a stone-cold monster. Everyone knew that, except this piece of shit. “What’s on that tiny little brain of yours? You’re boring me.”
Brett ignored the jibe. “Why the hell we here again? Seems like a lose-lose game to me. We’re in the goddamn Midwest Republic, feared by everyone for five-hundred miles in every direction, but Carlos—”
“First Citizen Carlos, if you know what’s good for you.”
“Fine, First Citizen Carlos, he’s sucking up to those assholes in Colorado. Why? Dude’s a thousand miles away, and the only army he’s got here is that pissant battalion he’s got moving east. We could mop them up, but instead Carlos kissed their asses and here we are, getting ready to run some bullshit joint training exercise with their last company-sized unit. Why we gotta go through Cincinnati? Place is a morgue, and what’s left are scary mo-fos.”
“Think about it, numbnuts. Out there in the wild, we were scary-ass monsters, right? Didn’t want to kill all those people but you do what you gotta do to survive. And you might as well enjoy yourself when there’s something you have to do, and we sure did. Going to Hell anyway, I figured. But we never took what we didn’t need, and we only played with our food—never bothered people when we didn’t have to. Right?”
“Yeah, so? We’re swell people, stand up guys, me and you. We only killed the people we had to rob, and I figured we were doing them a favor. Better quick by us than slow by starving. So what if we had a little fun with a few of them? They were dying anyway. And we always did it quick, when we killed them. None of that bullshit torture some other guys like so they can hear ’em yell.”
Samuel said, “Yeah. Well, now we’re in the Army of the Republic, and we don’t have to do that shit anymore at all, unless there’s some enclave that doesn’t figure they need to vote ‘yes’ on joining the Republic. When’s the last time we had to just straight murder an
yone?”
Brett frowned as he thought back. “Maybe two weeks. And another two before that.”
“Yeah. And in the month since we got back to my hometown, we’ve risen in the ranks. Played it square, got promoted. They even kept us together, me and my right-hand man. So I figure, this is just the Major giving us a little R-and-R. We slip down into Cincin, show these visiting Army fucks what we’re about. They report back to NORAD what a bunch of crazy maddog killers we all are, and they decide maybe they don’t want to mess with the Republic. Maybe it’s best if they just let us follow orders and leave us alone the rest of the time.”
“Shit, Sam. Why didn’t you say that before? So there’s a reason to mess with those freaky-ass losers in Cincin. Well, if there’s a reason, we might as well enjoy it, right? If you’re right, then the more we enjoy ourselves down there, the more we’ll impress those Army shits.”
“Yeah, that’s about right. Although,” Samuel said with a big happy grin, “I didn’t exactly ask for clarification on that little detail. They might say no, after all.”
“Better to ask for forgiveness,” Brett said, nodding. “Alright, I see our Army friends. Three hundred yards at one o’clock and about to meet their nightmares.”
Samuel squinted to see so far away, but Brett was right. Three platoons in Army field uniforms marching toward him, three abreast. “Cool. Brett, jump out and spread the word to our guys what the plan is. You think those screwballs in Cincin are crazy, wait till the Army sees what we got up our sleeves. Hate to do it, but they’ll leave us alone once they report back the crazy shit we’re about to pull.”
Brett hopped out and walked back toward the company of troops behind the jeep, all swagger and whistling happily. The guy was dumb, Samuel knew, but he was loyal, and down to do whatever. What more could you ask for in a friend?
He didn’t tell Brett that he hated the idea of working with those Army assholes, or that he had complained loudly about having to do it. Something about these guys, coming here from so far away, just didn’t sit right. They were up to something, or scouting them so the general-in-the-mountain could eat Samuel’s beloved Republic later. His C.O. had told him to follow orders or walk, and Samuel had no intention of walking away from his cushy post in the Republic’s army. But he’d damn sure follow those orders in a way that served the Republic best, even if his commanders were too stupid to realize these Army shits were basically spies. He’d do his best to make every one of them vomit by the time this day was done. And if one or two happened to disappear in some dark Cincinnati alley, well, that could hardly be traced back to Samuel.
And if it did, he’d just blame Brett. The guy was a monster and an idiot anyway, and deserved it. What Brett did with that one girl in Ohio… Whatever happened to him would only be Karma. Even if he was Samuel’s friend.
* * *
Nestor strode through the farmhouse like an avenging angel, destroying everything of value, personal or practical. The old man downstairs, now bound to a chair, deserved it. He had tracked the cannibals here, but they were gone when Nestor arrived. He and his Night Ghosts guerrillas—the invaders’ name for his band—were always a step behind, always just missing the murdering scum. Today, though, there were horse droppings still steaming in the barn here. The old man knew them, helped them, and they were so close now that Nestor could almost smell them. But they weren’t here, another miss, and that old man knew where they had gone. He was damn well going to tell.
Downstairs, Nestor could hear the old man shouting that he didn’t know who they were. The people Nestor was tracking had just come in, forced him to feed them, taken what they wanted, and “skedaddled.” After he finished going room by room upstairs, Nestor headed downstairs. He walked by the bound-up old man, ignoring the shiner growing over the man’s left eye, and went to the door into the garage.
As Nestor’s hand went to the door handle, the old man grew suddenly frantic, thrashing feebly against his bonds. “Don’t go in there!” he cried out. “You get out of my house! I didn’t do nothing!”
Nestor drew his pistol and motioned to one of his fighters; he came over and on the count of three, kicked the garage door open and stepped out of the way, while Nestor rushed inside with weapon ready and turned to the left. The fighter followed him in and turned to the right. No movement, no threats inside. They both looked around the garage…
Nestor’s eyes fell upon a picnic table in the center of the garage, and he froze. A chill shot up his spine as he realized what he was looking at. The table was covered in blood and gore, bits of flesh… and teeth. Wicked knives and a sickle lay bloody on the table, giving the scene an unearthly, terrifying aspect. “Something out of a damn horror movie…” muttered the fighter next to him. Then Nestor heard his fighter vomit.
Nestor grabbed his stricken fighter by the shoulder and half-dragged him back into the house, away from that terrible scene, and closed the door behind him as far as it would go after being kicked in. It blocked the view, at least. Had the person butchered there been alive when the cutting began? Nestor felt his stomach churn as he visualized the cannibals pulling their victim’s teeth out one by one while he was still alive and screaming for mercy. Nestor’s stomach flip-flopped.
All eyes turned to Nestor, but he only stared at the old man, jaw clenched, free hand in a fist at his side. He felt his cheeks flush, and his throat was dry. The old man stared back, eyes wide with fear rather than anger now.
Nestor didn’t take his eyes off the old man as he said, “Go get Ratbone.”
A woman near the door said, pausing, “Are… you sure, boss?”
Nestor merely nodded, and the woman darted out the door. Nestor said, “Old man, tell me where they are.”
“Who?” the man cried out, voice cracking.
“You know who. Tell me and we’ll go easier on you.”
The old man’s eyes teared up, and one strolled down his cheek. “If I tell you anything, you’ll kill me anyway… Please, I just—”
“Silence!” Nestor roared, taking a step toward the prisoner. He stopped himself, looked down at the ground and clenched his jaw as he opened and closed his fists. “I don’t think you understand, mister. Once you tell us where they are, then you get to die. Quickly and painlessly. Until then?” He shrugged. “How long this will go on is entirely up to you.”
The door opened and a man walked in. He was short and wiry-thin. He wore wire-rimmed glasses and a wool trench coat over a dress shirt. A nerdy bow tie, pressed jeans, and red suspenders completed his lack of style. He looked anything but dangerous, but Nestor knew better. Looks are deceiving.
“Ratbone. Find out where his guests went. We’ll wait outside. Do what you must, but don’t let him die until he tells you. Only then, kill him quick and make it painless. Understand?”
Ratbone’s eyes narrowed and he licked his lips, nostrils flaring. “Oh yes, boss. Oh, I do understand.” He looked at the old man and smiled, but it was far from friendly. “Cannibal scum.”
The old man began to scream. “No! You can’t leave me in here with him!”
Ratbone pulled a leather tube off his back and unrolled it on the kitchen counter. A dozen metal instruments gleamed. “I’ll get what you need, boss. Go wait outside. You shouldn’t be here for this.” He hummed softly to himself as he laid various instruments out on the counter.
Nestor nodded, watching the little man prepare for his evil work, then shook himself free of the fascination and he and the other fighters walked outside, closing the door behind them. They withdrew about a hundred yards—far enough, he hoped, to not hear what was coming. The idea of getting information this way went against everything he had believed in before the EMPs. Now, however, there weren’t police to wear a prisoner down over days and days to get more reliable information, and in that delay more people would probably be murdered. No, he had decided that the goal outweighed the means, and he’d just have to live with the guilt—because he’d protect some other innocent family throu
gh his willingness to carry that awful burden. And it would be a burden for the rest of his life, however long that would be, he knew.
He could have just released the Other, the evil no-Nestor who rode around in his mind all day trying to get loose. That one might enjoy doing what Ratbone did, but he would be just as likely to kill the guy outright. What did the Other care about information? Nestor couldn’t trust the Other with even the simplest of tasks. Besides, Nestor mused, bringing out the Other would just sidestep guilt that would still be his to bear, and that wasn’t right. If he was going to sentence a man to die this way, using the Other couldn’t buy freedom from guilt.
Forty-five minutes later, smoke began to wisp from the broken front window, and Nestor half-stood. Had something gone wrong in the house? But no, Ratbone walked calmly out the front door, his leather roll of tools slung across his back.
As he walked up, Nestor saw that Ratbone’s pupils were dilated, cheeks flushed, and his breath was husky. His hands, held in front of him, fidgeted and shook slightly. Nestor decided that when this was all over, Ratbone would receive the Other’s special treatment. But not now… not yet. For now, the deviant was useful in a war that had turned Nestor into everything he would have hated back in the good old days, before he knew about the Other. These were not the good old days. For now, Nestor would be who his Clanholme friends, the people who had given him redemption, needed him to be. He would willingly bear the guilt later.
Ratbone broke into his thoughts. “Boss, I got what you asked for.”
“Go ahead.” Nester said.
“It seems there’s four of them. They’re the old man’s two sons, a daughter, and a son-in-law. They have a cabin about ten miles from here where the old man thought they’d be hiding. Got compass directions and everything.”
Dark New World (Book 5): EMP Resurrection Page 3
