911: The Complete Series

by Grace Hamilton

  Three miles from the prison, they parked the firetruck on a secluded dirt track overhung with purple blooming black ash. The ARM fighters congregated in small groups, eating chocolate and drinking from canteens. The march from the substation hadn’t been a difficult one, but it had been nineteen miles in just under nine hours, including a one-hour break after ten miles. Not everyone in the fighting group was in top physical condition—but what they lacked in fitness, they more than made up for in determination.

  Parker had a phrase for these people, Sara remembered suddenly as she looked around. Salt of the Earth, he would have called them, and Sara couldn’t agree more.

  “Penny for them.” Ava appeared from behind the armored firetruck, pouring the last few Skittles from a packet into her mouth.

  “Well, seeing as no one is going to be making Skittles for a while, not until the factories come back online, I was thinking what a shame it would be if that was the last packet of Skittles in the U.S.”

  Ava gave Sara a rainbow smile and reached into her pocket. She pulled out another packet of Skittles and threw it to Sara, who caught the pack awkwardly. “Last but one, kemosabe. Last but one. Enjoy.”

  Sara laughed, split the packet open, and chewed the sweet candies gratefully. A good sugar rush was just what she needed right now. She wanted to be hyped and ready for whatever followed.

  Two of the advance observer scouts returned to meet them at the predetermined rendezvous point. Cally Swanson and Riley Michelson had appeared from the darkness to be greeted like heroes. Riley was Crow’s wild-haired, long-limbed son, and Cally his girlfriend and fellow wild child. They had volunteered for the scouting mission without a second thought and had brought back more valuable information than Sara would have dreamed to get.

  “We can’t be sure of the numbers inside the prison,” Cally began, “but at shift changes, we saw forty to fifty corrections officers go in, and roughly the same number exit. The towers with the big machine guns have two officers in them at all times. Mostly, they’re smoking or playing cards; they’re not the most alert sentries.”

  Sara considered the news, and then spoke. “Once we’re through the gate and into the quad, the towers can be taken out by the main wall door teams, and then we can get ourselves inside.” There was general agreement from Margret and the others.

  “Hold on,” said Riley, raising his hand and passing his fingers through his unruly hair. “There’s a smaller prison camp next to the main prison. It was used for low-security prisoners before the EMP.”

  Sara nodded. “Yeah, Ava and I saw it. It was abandoned.”

  Riley shook his head. “Not anymore. There’s a platoon of eighty FEMA troops stationed there now. They’ve got two truck-mounted M240s, and a big ol’ M939 5-ton truck. Six-wheeler. Looks like it’s packed with equipment and ammo.”

  Sara paused, flicking her eyes at Margret, who looked back at her. This was Sara’s call.

  The presence of the FEMA platoon changed the complexion of the operation completely, though. What would Parker have done? The answer to that was clear enough. For a start, he wouldn’t give up, not now that we’ve come this far with the armored firetruck, the F-250, and nearly two hundred resistance fighters.

  Knowing that was some comfort.

  Sara felt like she needed time to figure things out all over again, but time wasn’t something she had in huge supply. If they waited another night to plan a more thorough assault, how many people—innocent people—would die inside the jail? And the information Cally and Riley had relayed hadn’t made for happy listening, that was a given—but what had been an ever-greater discomfort for Sara was Margret deferring to her on the matter of how they should respond to the news of the FEMA reinforcements. Sara hadn’t expected to be pushed into a leadership dilemma so soon, but Margret was showing the other fighters, especially Crow Michelson, that she had complete trust in Jim Parker’s girl.

  Realizing that, and knowing she had to either embrace the trust or refuse it, Sara made up her mind and spoke, trying hard to keep her indecision from spilling out. “We should split our forces,” she determined, “but not attack the FEMA troops directly. We should put our IEDs outside the gates to the camp, and when we begin the assault on the main prison, a small force should explode them as the FEMA forces come out. Once we’ve knocked out their F-250s, we should be able to take them out with ground fire and the machine gun on our F-250.”

  Without discussion, Margret agreed, and added that she would lead the forces against the FEMA troops, and that Sara, Ava, and Crow would lead the assault on the main prison.

  Sara didn’t know if Margret was testing her. Perhaps the older woman was waiting to see if Sara would argue with a perfectly good plan just for the sake of it, thus showing Margret’s assessment of Sara’s abilities to be wide of the mark. A test to see if Sara would show that her new leadership role had made her overconfident and rash. But Sara had known immediately—instinctively—that Margret’s idea was sensible and logical. Sara, Ava, and Crow would be better suited to the blunt-force attack on the gates while Margret’s wilier tactical abilities would suit engagement with the FEMA forces. Sara would have been a fool to argue with the set-up, and the small smile Sara saw flicker briefly across the older woman’s face told her that she’d also made an accurate assessment of Margret’s motivation.

  Sara gathered the ARM fighters in a rough semicircle around the armored firetruck. The mood among the fighters was tense, but they were clearly ready for action. Sara explained the new information and the unexpected presence of the FEMA forces. She explained the two halves of the plan—the main attack on the prison gates, and the “wait and see” attack on the FEMA troops. No one asked questions; they all listened with rapt attention as Sara spoke. There were no dissenters, and no sense that there was a better way of freeing the people being held within the prison with the resources that they had.

  In their bright, attentive eyes, Sara saw people who were ready to fight, and ready to die if need be, to bloody the nose of the Council and take the first step toward revolution.

  Seeing that without any doubt, Sara stopped momentarily, listening to the fighters’ breathing on the chill air, the rustle of their clothes in the slow breeze, the gentle shuffling of their feet in the dirt. The sense of expectation was palpable. They were a wind-up toy ready to go, and it was Sara who had wound them up. The resistance was hanging on Sara’s command, waiting for her word.

  They were the detonation, she realized, and she was the spark.

  Sara felt herself swelling with the responsibility, growing more confident with her obligation to these people. And in her mind, she imagined Parker urging her on, and grew from that image, as well.

  “Okay,” she said quietly. “We’re doing this. Let’s roll.”

  15

  Rodgers and Castillo came for Parker at 11 p.m.

  Parker had been lying on his bunk, furiously going over the possibilities of engaging Kleet and his gang members in some action to break out of the prison. Of course, they could all end up getting shot and burned like the resistance fighters, but what was the alternative? Wait calmly until the Council was ready to kill him? If Sara had died for anything, it was the dream of excising the cancer at the heart of this new government.

  Parker stood as Castillo came into the room, Rodgers covering him with his Beretta M9 9 mm semiautomatic.

  “Wrists,” barked Castillo, and so Parker offered his wrists to be cuffed. Castillo also had ankle chains, which he fitted to Parker’s legs while Rodgers pointed the gun at the center of Parker’s forehead.

  “I sure hope I don’t sneeze,” Rodgers said mock cheerfully. “Brains are so difficult to get off blankets.”

  At least I have brains to shoot out, you bald-headed fuck, Parker would have liked to have said, but didn’t want to risk losing his free-association privileges for nothing more than a satisfying insult. He needed continued access to Kleet. That was way more important than resorting to bad-mouthing this i
nconsequential piece of shit. For a second, Parker reveled in his renewed ability to feel and project anger. He had spent so long feeling nothing that any emotion felt like progress.

  It was something to hold onto.

  The two corrections officers marched Parker through the prison to the interrogation room with the one-way mirror, where Spencer had shown him the pictures of Sara.

  The warden himself was already waiting at the table, kicked back in the chair with his feet up and smoking a fat cigar, flicking ash onto the floor. What looked to be the same U.S. Marshal as before, with his MP7 held across his chest, was stationed in the corner of the room, staring unblinkingly, as if he hadn’t moved since the last time Parker had been there. As Parker was brought in and shackled to the restraining bar, Warden Spencer welcomed him like an old friend returning from exile.

  “Jimbob, Jimbob! How great to see you again. Your face is looking good—apart from that heinous fucking eye socket of course—but otherwise Calhoun has done an outstanding job. Sit down, boy, sit down.”

  Parker sat, not bothering to say anything in return.

  Spencer watched him in silence for one full minute. All that could be heard in the room was the low rattle of Spencer’s breathing and the hum of the electrics in the strip light. There was a constant flicker in their intensity that Parker assumed could be attributed to the poor standard of generators the Council had supplied to the prison. They’d have to be old and primitive to still work post-EMP. Parker noticed that new wiring was running across the ceiling, held in place by crude cuts of gaffer tape. This is how the world will be for many years to come, he thought. Jury rigged.

  Spencer inhaled and exhaled loudly, with unnecessary drama, as if waiting him out.

  It’s not like I’m going anywhere, Parker thought. It’s not like the evil fuck doesn’t already have my attention.

  “Smart guy like you, Parker, what would you do in my place, eh? If we swapped places? And it was you holding me here. What would you do?”

  “If I’d had your daughter murdered, you mean?”

  Spencer puffed on his cigar and moved his hands expansively. “No, no. Generally, I mean. You’re the guy in charge, and I’m the terrorist—what would you do if you were me?”

  Parker sneered at him, leaning back. “I’d have held a trial.”

  Spencer laughed himself near onto the floor until the sound turned into an amused and breathless cough. Catching his breath, he thumped the table and wiped the tears from his eyes. “Boy, you are one hilarious son-bitch, you know that?”

  Parker stared back at him. “Remove these cuffs and I’ll show you how amusing I can be.”

  Meeting his gaze, Spencer’s face turned to stone, his eyes narrowing into little crystals of dark menace. “Parker, has it not occurred to you why you haven’t already been hung from a flagpole with your innards fluttering in the fucking wind?” He almost screamed the last two words, dots of spittle spraying from his lips. Parker saw the U.S. Marshal flinch.

  “It had crossed my mind, yes.”

  “Good, Jimbob, good. First of all, it was just for fun. Keeping you alive. I couldn’t get here. Business elsewhere too important for me to come back. And I so wanted to be the guy who ended Jimbob Parker. Make it personal.”

  Parker licked his dry lips. Was this it? Had Spencer called him here for a good old-fashioned bad guy gloating session before murdering him?

  “So I asked Rayleigh, my deputy, to have some amusement with you while I was away. Some fun. Just some needles and junkie juice. For… old time’s sake.”

  Parker thought about the weeks of nihilistic ambivalence he’d suffered under the needle. The pull of oblivion, the warm dislocation—addicted again to the fruit of the poppy, all as a holding pattern of amusement while they waited for Spencer to return to dispense the coup de grâce. If Parker had ever needed evidence of the moral vacuum at the center of the Council’s takeover of the U.S., man alive, here was the cherry on top of the shit-cake.

  “But something happened while I was out in the big world, Parker. Something unexpected.”

  Spencer had to apply a new light to the end of his cigar. Since the coughing fit, he’d neglected it and it had gone out. He puffed hard as his Zippo licked flame on the end of the cigar. “Cheap shit stogie. You just can’t get the good stuff anymore.”

  The cloud of blue smoke drifted across the table between Spencer and Parker, flickering between ephemeral and substantial, depending on the stuttering intensity of the strip light.

  “I started to hear stories, Parker. We’d capture terrorists and ask questions, about your so-called resistance, and you know who a lot of their ramblings referred to?”

  Parker shook his head, tempted to tell Spencer to shit or get off the pot.

  “They were referring to you, Jimbob. Fancy that. Little old you. It seems that, out there in the land of the oppressed, you have become something of a myth to inspire the masses.”

  Parker stared back at the warden, wondering when the joke was coming. But the man seemed deadset serious. Of all things, this hadn’t been what Parker was expecting.

  Spencer leaned in, and now Parker could hear the outrage in his voice. “There are people out there doing things in your name, against the Council, FEMA, the government… hell, even against me. Blowing up shit, attacking shit, shooting shit—and a number of them are doing it in your name. Or by your example. Apparently, while you’ve been here, detained at my pleasure, you’ve also been in Mississippi, blowing up bridges; you’ve been in Kentucky, stealing from our ammunition dumps; and in, get this—boy, you will not believe it—in Chicago, when the undersecretary for defense was assassinated… well, there at that moment, I hear you your goddamned self pulled the trigger. All while you were stuck here in this jail, enjoying the hospitality of our free fucking heroin. What do you make of that, boy? Huh? Whatcha got to say to that?” Spencer snarled.

  Parker’s head was spinning, but the rage in Spencer’s expression was enough to tell him that the man meant what he said. What the hell?

  “I can see from your eye there that you are surprised by this development, Parker. And hell, I thought you might be,” Spencer added in disgust, spitting onto the floor in emphasis. “Jesus, I’m telling you—not as surprised as I was. Fuck. Jimbob a fucking myth. All fucking John Wayne rolling into every town to take on the bad guys. Jimbob Parker… The Magnificent One! Jesus.”

  Spencer laughed himself into an angry fit. It took nearly two minutes for him to stop, and included Spencer croaking to the marshal to get him a glass of water. When Spencer had finished coughing, and drained the cup, he said simply and quietly, with his eyes fixed on Parker: “Unfortunately, you can’t kill a myth.”

  Parker said nothing. He only stared back into the abyss of Spencer’s face.

  “A myth is a story. You can’t kill a story, Jimbob… but you can… un-tell it.”

  Spencer had to relight his cigar for the second time.

  “So, you’re going to die, Jimbob, and I’m going to kill you myself, with my own bare hands. I’m going to take out your remaining eye and I’m going to chew it up next to your ear, smacking my lips and savoring every gristly moment. And when you hear me swallow it, you’ll know that the next thing I’m gonna do is eat out your heart.

  “But before that, I have to attend to the Myth of Parker. I have to send a message to the masses that you are not to be trusted, that you are not to be followed, and that anyone who does has made the worst fucking decision of their lives. My mission, therefore, is to ensure that your mythology does not become martyrdom.”

  Spencer’s last words were a hiss and for the first time since their conversation had begun, Parker felt a chill run through him.

  “But, Parker, that’s all for tomorrow when my guest arrives. Tonight, I think there should be a truce. A relaxation of hostilities. For old time’s sake. What do you say?”

  Parker had barely followed where this conversation had come from, let alone formed a response. He re
mained silent, staring back at the warden as if to dare him into answering his own question.

  “How ’bout we start with a peace offering?” Spencer reached into his uniform breast pocket, pulled out a cigar tube, and placed it carefully on the table next to Parker’s hands. “Here you go, Jimbob. Be my guest.”

  Parker left the tube where it was.

  “No, I insist. Open it. Please.”

  Parker did as he was told. He unscrewed the lid on the cigar tube, upending it to let gravity slide the cigar out; but all that came out was a crumbly mass of ash. It covered Parker’s hand, settling into the cracks in his skin.

  He looked at Spencer. “What the…?”

  Spencer smiled into Parker’s eye. “I thought you might like to spend some time with Sara… before I flush the rest of her down the toilet…”

  When Parker finished vomiting, Spencer sent the marshal out to get him a towel and some water in a plastic cup.

  Parker’s wrists were raw and bleeding from where the cuffs had dug in as he’d yanked at the restraints, trying to break free and get to Spencer. But the cuffs had been too strong, the restraining bar on the table too sturdy. So, spent, exhausted, stinking from the vomit soaking into the front of his jumpsuit and pooling at his feet, Parker slumped back in his chair and made eye contact with Spencer for the first time since he’d opened the cigar tube.

  The towel and the cup of water went unused on the table. All Parker wanted to do in this moment was spit curses at the man before him. “I will kill you, Spencer. I will kill you, and I will take down the Council. I swear on everything holy in this fucked up universe. I. Will. End. You.”

  Spencer grimaced as he brushed Sara’s remains from the table and rubbed the palms of his hands, like a man getting rid of something distasteful on his skin.