Night Before Dawn

by David Lucin

  Mention of the shootout, the Great Khan, and the interrogation silenced the room. Froze it. When he finished, no one spoke, just watched him like they were expecting a solution to the problem. Finally, Theodore asked, “So what evidence do you have that this White Horde actually exists?”

  “As of now, nothing aside from what the Great Khan has told us,” Gary admitted, “but a scout team with two medium-range recon drones left Flagstaff around 1:00 a.m. this morning, en route to Window Rock. If there’s no sign of the White Horde there, they’ll continue into New Mexico. I expect we’ll hear from them tomorrow.”

  “I see.” Theodore returned to drumming his fingertips on the table. “And what exactly does this have to do with Prescott?”

  The question caught Gary by surprise. Even without hard evidence of the White Horde’s existence, he assumed Theodore would recognize the potential danger to Prescott and be eager to work with Flagstaff on a common plan of defense. “As I was saying before, cooperation between our two towns is essential. We’ll need to join forces if we want to counter this threat.”

  “We’re not sure it is a threat yet,” Theodore said. “Besides, we have our own problems here, as Chief Stewart can attest. Crime is on the rise. Some groups of folks have moved into the outskirts of town, where they’ve formed what amounts to gangs. Twice in the past month we’ve had ration depots attacked. Just yesterday, masked thugs burst into a shelter at a church. They took everyone’s food and then disappeared, killing one and injuring three others in the process. We have no idea where they went or where they’re staying, and we don’t have the manpower to hunt them down. So if you’re asking for our help, I’m sure you understand when I say I need something more concrete before I commit anyone to an extended mission away from home. Unfortunately, the National Guard pledged their services to Flagstaff, not us.”

  It took a second for Gary to recognize Theodore’s last dig, but when he did, he ground his teeth so hard his jaw popped. He prided himself on being a patient man, a quality that suited his career with the police, but Theodore was testing his patience today. “If nothing else, bring it to your city council, have them mull it over. I’m sure they’ll want to hear about this.”

  “Won’t be necessary. They’ve given me authority to manage our law-enforcement resources as I see fit, so ultimately, the decision is mine to make.”

  “Hold on here just a minute.” Jordan scowled and aimed an accusatory finger at Theodore. “When New River was in its death throes back in September and I went up to ask Flagstaff for help, not for a second did Mayor Ruiz or Commander Kipling hesitate in coming to our rescue. Now we have a problem that’s as big, potentially bigger, and you’re saying you need more evidence? What do you want? The Great Khan himself to waltz in here and hand you his most recent census of the White Horde, complete with a catalog of weapons and a list of future targets?”

  Theodore ran his fingers through his thin hair. He looked toward Amelia, perhaps hoping she would rush to his aid, but she merely stared blankly across the room. Gary wasn’t sure how to read her body language. Was she still reeling from the news? Thinking of a way to politely agree with her mayor, her boss? Or was she embarrassed by how quickly he’d denied Gary’s request for help? He prayed it was the latter.

  “I’ll be the first to acknowledge Flagstaff’s role in assisting us during that crisis,” Theodore said. “Without them, who knows what would have happened? But the circumstances aren’t the same. Everything we know about this White Horde—which isn’t much—comes from a man who, from what you’ve described, Mr. Ruiz, may very well be a psychiatric patient who escaped from the hospital when the bombs fell. Forgive me if I’m skeptical of what he says and am not inclined to take it at face value. His horde could be nothing but a paranoid delusion, the hallucination of a madman.” He pushed out his chair and rose to his feet. “If your scouting mission turns up proof of a thousand-strong army, I’ll happily reconsider, but until then, I’m afraid we have more pressing matters closer to home.”

  When he took a step toward the door, Amelia piped up: “I understand your reluctance, sir. Really, I do. But wouldn’t it be wise to plan for the worst and hope for the best? The logistics of sending teams to Flagstaff are complicated. It could take days. We might consider getting a head start on that work now.”

  “Not if we want to cause a panic.” Theodore reached for the door but stopped short of opening it. “And by the way, I’m sure this doesn’t need to be said, but what we’ve discussed here stays in this room. If this rumor of the White Horde gets out, it’ll be like that first day all over again. I can’t have crowds of hundreds or thousands storming our ration depots.” He dipped his head toward Gary. “Have a safe journey home. I look forward to hearing the report from your scouts.”

  With that, he walked out of the conference room, leaving the door open as if to emphasize the meeting had ended.

  Amelia shot up from her chair, her neon-green parka a blur. She stood still for a moment, glancing between Gary and the open door like she couldn’t decide whether to follow the mayor or apologize for his behavior.

  “Go,” Jordan told her while making a shooing motion. “He’ll listen to you more than he’ll listen to me.”

  After another second of hesitation, she said, “I’m so sorry, Mr. Ruiz,” then rushed out and shut the door behind her.

  Gary laid his hands in his lap. He should have fought harder, but Theodore’s outright refusal to even consider offering Prescott’s support stunned him into inaction. Did Theodore truly believe the White Horde might not be real? Gary didn’t think the man was stupid. Shortsighted perhaps, but not stupid. Maybe he thought the Khan could be bought off. After all, the East Romans paid tribute to Attila, and in return, he took his Huns westward into Gaul instead of southward into the Balkans. But Gary doubted the Great Khan would accept tribute. The White Horde sought blood, not only supplies.

  “That did not go how I imagined it would.”

  “Frankly,” Jordan began, “that was about the reaction I was expecting. As soon as you got to that business about an army, I knew right then and there Bonelli would tuck his tail between his legs. The man’s a snake in the grass. Always has been and always will be. Got accused of misappropriating city funds a couple years ago. Nothing we could prove definitively, but I find it somewhat suspicious that his daughter’s slick new Mercedes, a 2058, last model before the factories all switched over to war production, happened to be registered to the City of Prescott. Don’t ask me why the town voted him in a second time.”

  “Wow,” was all Gary could say. It seemed his initial judgment of Theodore had proven correct. Now he was all but certain the man ate more than his fair share of rations.

  Jordan scooted his chair closer to Gary’s and turned his back to the door. “You know what the best thing about being sheriff is, Mayor Ruiz?” Gary had no idea, but Jordan didn’t wait for a response. “My office does not fall under his jurisdiction, and when he talks about law-enforcement resources, he means the police department. I was elected by the folks of Yavapai County, so I work for them, not Bonelli. Plus, my informal arrangement with Chief Stewart says I’m in charge of protecting Prescott’s borders, and it just so happens even the remote possibility of an army rolling in from the east falls squarely in my domain of responsibility. So me and my people will be there for you. You just tell us when and where.”

  Gary’s frustration melted away, and he was overcome with gratitude. He hadn’t doubted Jordan would come through in support of Flagstaff, but hearing the sheriff offer to help relieved him a great deal. “Thank you. You have no idea how much that means to me.”

  “I’m many things, not all of them good, but I am anything but a man who turns his back on a friend and ally. And don’t you worry about Stewart. I’ll have a chat with her. I can tell she’s thinking the same as me. It might take her some extra maneuvering to wriggle through Bonelli’s clutches, but she’ll be there with whoever she can spare. I’m sure of it.”
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br />   “Thank you,” Gary said again. “Really.”

  “Don’t mention it.” Jordan folded his arms atop the table. “There’s one thing you can do for me, though.”

  Gary perked up. “Anything. You name it.”

  The corners of Jordan’s eyes crinkled with a smile. “Once you get confirmation of the horde and some rough numbers, send your messenger straight to my office, not city hall. I’ll let the news”—he wiggled his fingers into air quotes—“leak to the public. A little fire under the backside never hurt nobody, and despite what Bonelli says about panic, I have faith in our people. We’ve been through a lot together, and it’s made us stronger. We have our own problems, and he’s not lying about the gangs, but once folks hear there’s an army on its way, I’m sure we’ll get a wave of volunteers ready to do their part.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Gary insisted. “I don’t want your civilians risking their lives for us.”

  “It’s not about just us. Not anymore. It’s about all of us. I’m under no illusion that Prescott’s not next in line after Flagstaff. I’ve got a daughter and a six-year-old grandson, so I’ll be damned if I won’t do everything in my power to protect them. I reckon there’s plenty around here who think the same as me.”

  The ambiance in the room had shifted, like the air had gotten warmer, like it was full of energy. For the first time in a long while, despite the circumstances and the threat of the White Horde, Gary felt what he could only describe as hope. “I’m in the same boat. When the Great Khan comes, I’ll be there, at the front lines.”

  “I believe it,” Jordan said. “When it’s done and we’ve sent the White Horde packing, I’ve got a ’48 Châteauneuf-du-Pape ready to drink in celebration.” He gave Gary an exaggerated wink. “Because I know how much you enjoyed that Rioja we had at Sunset Point.”

  9

  As a kid, Jenn could never stay awake in moving vehicles. There was something about the sound of the tires on the asphalt and the gentle acceleration forces thrumming through her bones. Her brothers poked fun at her, calling her Sleepy Jenny until the day they went to war. Even in Sam’s Tesla, if the trip lasted for more than ten or fifteen minutes, she’d likely nod off.

  Tonight, however, she sat on the edge of her seat, wide awake and alert. The scout trucks left Flagstaff at 1:00 a.m. and drove eastward down I-40 until they reached the junction with Indian Route 12. Jenn feared Dylan might want to drive the trucks into Window Rock for a better peek at the Khan’s forces there, but he opted to send a drone instead. At around forty klicks, the range was too great for live video, but the drone’s AI was programmed to snap dozens of pictures, both in the infrared and visual spectra, of anything it perceived as noteworthy.

  Upon the drone’s return an hour later, Dylan reviewed the intel: nothing to suggest the White Horde had moved into Window Rock. Jenn wasn’t surprised. Checking on Window Rock was a crapshoot; the Khan had said the horde was in Santa Fe, and it would take a large army far longer than five hours to drive two hundred miles in the dead of winter, not to mention in the middle of the night.

  Jenn was thus treated to her first trip to New Mexico. The same drone that had scouted Window Rock screened the trucks’ advance, flying close enough to transmit live footage. She caught the odd glimpse on Dylan’s tablet. The interstate was a graveyard of idle vehicles, and the drone picked up no infrared signatures indicating fires or habitation in any of the tiny towns off the freeway. Whoever remained out here at the time of the attacks in April must have either died or sought refuge elsewhere.

  Her anxiety grew with every mile. The trucks were headed into uncharted territory. Since the bombs, the world had become so big. Phoenix felt like the other side of the country, and Albuquerque lay twice as far away. It might as well have been in Alaska.

  Around 7:00 a.m., when Jenn had been awake for twenty-five straight hours, Dylan ordered the trucks to pull into a travel center about halfway between Window Rock and Albuquerque. While charging the first drone from the spare battery, he sent the second toward Santa Fe on autonomous recon mode. The round trip should take three hours, four at most.

  Jenn sat with Courtney, Quinn, Beau, and Sam around a small fire in the parking lot of the travel center, which comprised a long, single-story structure with a peaked roof covered in solar panels. Boards barred the windows of an old convenience store and gift shop. Faded signs, several of them defaced with spray paint, advertised T-shirts, cigars, Native American art, and home-cooked meals. Ironically, what might have once been a family restaurant now housed a Subway sandwich kiosk. Quinn had explored it, mostly out of curiosity, but found no food. Too bad. Jenn could have gone for some of that rubber-flavored lab-grown chicken she’d been dreaming about so much lately.

  The group chatted away, Jenn catching only snippets of what they were saying. She checked her watch compulsively. Over three hours had passed since the drone left for Santa Fe, so it should be on the way back and arriving shortly. Would it find the city in ruin, engulfed in flames? What about the White Horde? What would a marauding army of a thousand even look like? Again, her mind had no frame of reference, so it recalled footage from the war: lines of Russian tanks rolling across the Polish countryside or convoys of Chinese troop transports navigating the muddy, dilapidated roads of northern India. She squirmed at the thought.

  A tap to the arm broke her stupor. Sam, a pot of potato soup in hand, asked, “You want some of this?”

  “Huh? Oh, no thanks. I’m fine.”

  “You sure?”

  Her stomach rumbled, but she was too anxious to eat. “Hundred percent. I’m not really in the mood for potato-flavored water. I’d take a grilled cheese sandwich, though, if you have one of those.”

  He shrugged and stirred the soup with a wooden spoon. “Suit yourself. More for me.”

  “Lucky you.”

  “We were obsessed,” Courtney was saying as Jenn tuned into the group’s conversation. The tall woman tucked her knees tight to her chest and wrapped her arms around her shins. As usual, she sported her black headband, black jacket, black jeans, and black boots. She wore her Guard fatigues so rarely that Jenn often forgot she was a real soldier. “My husband and I would stay up all night playing.”

  “I could never get into VR.” Sam compulsively stirred his soup, as if that would somehow improve the flavor. Jenn wondered if he’d one day become, with enough practice, a good cook like her father. “It always made me nauseous.”

  “Can confirm,” she said. “His buddies at McKay Village had a rig. One time, after a few beers, they bullied him into playing and he almost threw up. I think he’s got a weaker stomach than me, and that’s saying something.”

  He blew on a spoonful of soup and slurped up a small bite. “It’s true.”

  “Were you a gamer, Jenn?” Quinn asked while staring jealously at Sam’s breakfast. “You seem like the type.”

  “I wasn’t, actually. My brother Andrew was. I played with him sometimes, but it was never really my thing.”

  A spark leaped from the fire and landed near Courtney’s foot. She stomped it out with her boot and asked, “You didn’t even try the baseball sims? I used to play football with Garrett all the time.”

  “Nope. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer real sports.”

  “Did you ever play at a proper VR arcade, though? It’s way better. The holograms never looked quite right, and it wasn’t as immersive as the at-home rig, but it was fun having space to move around.” Courtney peered across the fire at Beau, who sat quietly, watching the flames flicker and dance. “What about you, Davis?”

  He rubbed his eye and yawned. “I played Strike Force: Legends semi-professionally for a while, but that’s all.”

  Sam coughed out a mouthful of soup. “Did you say semi-professionally?”

  “Yeah,” Beau said as the fire popped and threw out another spark, this one toward Quinn, who let it fizzle and die on its own. “It wasn’t that big of a deal. I won a few tournaments and had some follow
ers who donated a few bucks sometimes.”

  Jenn scratched her hair through her beanie. “Can someone please explain to me what Strike Force: Legends is?”

  “Come on,” Quinn teased. “Even I know that one. It’s a shooter where you blast away Chinese soldiers, isn’t it?”

  Beau curled his lip. “It’s a first-person shooter, yes, and there’s a mission where you have to assassinate a Chinese general in Myanmar, but it’s a tiny part of the story mode.”

  Quinn slapped her knee. “Nailed it. See? I know my video games.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Beau muttered.

  Courtney asked him another question, but Jenn’s attention had wandered to the trucks, which were parked beneath the gas station’s canopy, the pumps all covered with torn, sun-bleached blue tarps. Yannick and his grunts lounged in the bed of the Honda. Soon, it would be their turn to warm up by the fire. Dylan sat on the tailgate of the Ford, tablet in hand. He’d been alone for the better part of three hours. For most of that time, Jenn had been trying to work up the courage to ask him about what happened in Window Rock. If he was hurting or suffering from post-traumatic stress, as Courtney had suggested, Jenn wanted to help. But she feared he might snap if she brought up anything personal. After Payson, she’d snapped at Sam for less. She even swore at Gary.

  “You sure you don’t want some of this?” Sam pushed a spoonful of soup toward her mouth. The others continued their very dull discussion about VR.

  “No,” she said distractedly. “I’m good. Thanks, though.”

  He shook the spoon for emphasis. “You should eat something, if not for the energy, then to warm you up. It actually really helps.”

  Dylan dragged his finger across his tablet and poked at the screen.