“Stir the pot, see what comes up,” he said. “Always worth the exercise, don’t you think?”
Politeness cropped the President’s reply. Earle had little choice but to confront his own particular challenge head-on, motives for accepting an invite into the lion’s den mystifying to Tom – except that maybe it was the only show in town. He walked straight up to Lowenstein and Tom and thrust out his hand.
“Madame President, good to see you.”
“You too, Mr Earle.”
They shook. Earle turned to Tom with unjustified familiarity, Tom recognizing the strategic move and not really welcoming it.
“Tom,” Earle said. “Good to see you again.”
“I thought I said I didn’t want to corroborate any rumors?”
The editor shrugged and looked at him as if he didn’t understand the complaint.
“And you didn’t,” he said. “Other sources gave us your name. The truth was out there.”
Lowenstein gave the gentlest of scoffing laughs. Earle swiveled his somewhat bullfrog-like gaze towards her, heavy-lidded with cynicism of his own.
“The Administration hasn’t asked for a correction.”
“You run corrections?” Tom asked.
“I don’t like to,” Earle answered bluntly. “Like you said, ink’s expensive. Gotta make it count, right?”
*
THE SERVERS STARTED bringing in food, which triggered the remaining guests making for their seats. Tom stepped past Wilhelm to make sure he was next to Lucas, with Lilianna on Luke’s other side. They swapped a familiar smile and Tom noted several tactical pin-up boards behind his daughter pushed to the back of the room bearing paperwork covered in scrawled marker pen and rough diagrams.
“You didn’t really think you were going to keep this story to yourself, did you, dad?”
Tom lit his gaze back on Lila while Lucas finished his second glass of juice.
“He didn’t have to name me in the paper,” Tom said.
“But it was the truth, wasn’t it?” she replied. “Isn’t that what you would do?”
“Yeah,” Tom shrugged. “You’re such a staunch supporter of local journalism, maybe you really are working the wrong job, huh?”
It was meant as indulgent sarcasm. Lilianna countered with a negligent shrug of her own, carefully designed just to irritate him and honed through years of practice.
“Why do you think I went there in the first place?”
The answer forced Tom’s mouth shut. He knew better than to inflame a thought bubble by giving it air. Instead, he switched attention to Lucas and ruffled the boy’s hair as the youngster smacked his lips appreciatively as he drank a whole glass of juice.
“Go easy there, hey buster?”
“Are you saying we shouldn’t get while the getting’s good, dad?”
“Na, I’m saying don’t piss your pants at the dinner table and ruin the family name.”
Lucas giggled at the joke delivered straight, but Tom felt Luke’s sister’s eyes still on him as she rested her chin on her fists, elbows on the table’s edge further along from him.
“Any other incidents you want to tell us about while you’re at it, dad?”
Social discomfort put Tom in the mood for sarcasm, but he had to close his mouth fast for the second time, remembering his hijinks armed with the longbow earlier in the day.
“I killed a biter today, actually,” he said.
The much-redacted admission was good enough to feel true. Lucas dropped his beaming smile at once.
“Damn it,” he said. “I’ve never killed anything.”
The words had a chill to them, but Tom told himself the remark was out of context.
“Deer don’t count?” he asked slowly.
“Animals are stupid.”
Tom drew a breath.
“Tasty, though.”
And a server with a metal cart wheeled into their pause, arrival adumbrated by the delicious steam of a braised casserole as Wilhelm quietly directed the woman towards the tight-knit Vanicek trio.
*
WILHELM MOVED INTO the empty chair beside Tom, and their head of Safety, the ponytailed ex-soldier named Carlos Ortega, slid into the seat on his other side. Being near the middle of the oval table, Tom and his children were across from Dr Hamilton, Wilhelm’s partner Carlotta, as well as President Lowenstein. And perhaps because of her, the newspaperman Earle sat out of direct earshot alongside his sponsor Abe Ben-Gurion, while the remaining other guests were at the other end with Aileen Leng and the Colonel who slurped at a glass what was definitely neither juice nor water.
Hamilton sat before an empty plate, waiting his turn to be served, and Tom noted his eyes frequently straying to the children. Lilianna made her brother wait, a mix of rice and rich casserole wafting impossible-to-resist smells, at least for a growing boy.
The Australian knew Tom was looking and shot him a harmless smile.
“You can’t really ask some of those questions any more, huh?”
Tom had to squint to understand the man’s strong Down Under accent.
“Questions?” was his best reply.
“Dinner parties,” Hamilton said. “The innocent questions of yesteryear. Everyone’d bring a plate, you know? Set up a kids’ table for the little ‘uns. ‘What have you been up to? How are your kids?’”
Hamilton’s voice went up high like he was imitating some long-lost Australian housewife. The words fell out like a bad hand of Scrabble, utterly useless.
“You’re the virus expert?”
Tom changed the subject to spare them all the scientist’s obvious grief and whatever tragedy of personal circumstances saw him in the wrong country when the world fell apart.
“Yes, an immunologist,” Hamilton replied and forced a chipper smile. “Circumstances being what they are, I can probably call myself a ‘world-leading expert’ now, eh? But if you want to know anything about the Furies and how it all happened, I’m not your guy.”
“‘Not’ your guy?”
“It wasn’t a virus – or at least not one communicated by the dead.”
“Yes, I read the article.”
“Hasn’t stopped people asking me,” the Australian replied.
“And if it wasn’t a virus?”
Hamilton met Tom’s look with a bleak smile.
“And that’s the second question everyone asks.”
He nodded towards the children as a woman arrived to serve his food.
“Either everyone’s infected, given the after-life transition, as I like to call it, or the . . . phenomenon occurs some other way. I haven’t had the equipment to do much analysis,” he said.
The scientist again locked eyes with Tom.
“In polite company, the short answer is ‘NFI,’ mate . . . N. F. I.”
“I know what that means,” Lucas said.
He didn’t look up, but still managed a cute grin as he started shoveling in food.
“You reckon?” Hamilton replied with a cheeky smirk of his own.
“Yeah.”
“What’s it stand for then?”
Lucas was grinning still, looking askance at his father who adopted the frown Hamilton’s “weird uncle” routine required.
“I can’t say,” the boy said at last.
“No Friendly Integers,” Hamilton said. “That’s what it stands for. Honest.”
And he winked at the chuckling boy.
“You could clear something else up for me, then?” Tom asked.
“Sure, mate,” the scientist replied. “I’ll give anything a burl once.”
“There’s seven of you on the Council, but the newspaper talks about Five?”
Hamilton snorted.
“Yeah,” he said. “Stupid bloody me, arse my way through the apocalypse only to get into politics. I think I’m doing it wrong, Tom.”
“Unelected, though. . . ?”
“‘Adjuncts’, they call it,” Hamilton said. “It’s all pretty new to me. I volunteered
my info at the checkpoint and word got to Mr Earle down there. Next thing I know, I’m meeting these bigwigs –”
And he motioned to Dana Lowenstein by his side, politely listening in without the need for a translator as she worked her way carefully through her meal with a fork poised like she could catch a fly with chopsticks.
“– and then they ‘second’ me like they did Councilor Leng.”
“Aileen and David have valuable, very specific expertise, Mr Vanicek.”
“I said call me ‘Dave’ please, madam President,” Hamilton chuckled. “Every time you call me David I look around expecting my mum to show up with the cricket bat.”
Tom chuckled too.
“And you can call me Tom, while we’re at it,” Tom said to Lowenstein.
The Latino security chief Ortega had sat straining at the placid conversation for some time. He finally threw his hat into the ring, unperturbed about the chance of cutting short the Council President despite not meriting “adjunct” status himself.
“I’ve heard a lot about you, Vanicek,” he said.
Perhaps unexcited by the meal Tom’s children ravenously devoured, Ortega leaned forward in his seat to shoot his sallow, long-faced gaze Tom’s way.
“‘The hero of the Raptor incident’,” Ortega grinned at him like a skinned shark. “Careful, Vanicek, or they’ll press-gang you for a Council seat too.”
Wilhelm gave an awkward, but polite chuckle.
“I’m sure Tom would make a fine adjunct, Carlos.”
“Ortega,” he said to Wilhelm with a hint of bared steel.
“We value all the efforts of those contributing to our safety,” President Lowenstein said in a crisp, level tone, her eyes locked on Wilhelm.
Ortega eyed the brief flash of animosity between the pair as if it aroused him, though he swung his attention back to Tom and eased back in his chair until Wilhelm between them broke their line of sight.
“What no one’s talking about, though, is where the hell a working Raptor came from.”
“Oh, we have very much been discussing that, chief.”
Again Lowenstein and Wilhelm swapped looks, though now the missing subtext had a different texture. Ortega leaned back into the discussion as he started eating.
“We always knew there could be other military units who survived,” he said and swallowed. “In fact, I think I actually warned you about it before we even came here.”
None of the listening Councilors appeared keen to leap in. The serving tray started making the rounds for a second helping and Lucas frantically finished clearing his plate while Lilianna poured herself and Tom a tall glass of water. Tom wrapped unconscious fingers around the glass and was surprised to feel the water chilled.
“You were on the Air Force Base, back when it all started?”
Ortega glanced at Tom for the question, paused as if considering how much to reply.
“We all started at the Air Force Base,” the Colonel boomed from the other end of the table.
The declaration silenced everyone. There was a hot look in the old man’s eye and Tom was surprised to see Lowenstein stare into her lap as if cowed. It took a second to see he’d read it wrong. Dr Lowenstein folded a cloth napkin neatly in her lap and looked up again with clear disinterest in any potential argument.
“No one forgets that, August.”
Across from the Colonel, Aileen Leng spoke up.
“Technically, we didn’t all come from the Air Force Base,” she said.
The Colonel shot an annoyed look towards Ortega as if expecting sympathy. The Head of Safety was an unusual cut for a military man with his ponytail and a gold stud in one ear. He took a drink, then lifted an unnecessary knife from beside his plate as if to cut the tension in the room. But Carlotta Deschain surprised them all by standing and throwing her napkin down beside her plate.
“I’m sick of this debate,” she said.
The Council woman walked out of the room shooting one telltale glance at Wilhelm, who cleared his throat with a nervous tic, hesitated as he gauged the look, then stood more slowly to follow his partner on her implicit summons from the room.
Wilhelm patted Tom on the shoulder as if he needed reassurance.
“We’re like a big family, Tom,” he said. “A healthy difference of opinion’s what’s helped us get some of our best outcomes. You’ll see.”
Then he hurried from the chamber.
Ortega snickered, but it wasn’t at the departing Councilor.
“A big family’s not who we need guiding our decisions here,” he muttered.
The security chief for some reason now glanced Tom’s way.
“You asked me if I started on the Air Force Base, and the answer’s ‘Yeah’,” Ortega said. “You might’ve worked it out for yourself by now, but I’m no Air Force geek.”
“I resent that remark,” the Colonel said.
All the eyes were on Carlos Ortega though. No one except Tom noticed the female aide gently remove the glass bottle of spirits by the Colonel’s side. The older man’s nostrils flared, but there was history there too. The plucky woman made a face and moved a jug of water closer to hand.
“I was at Rickenbacker when the sun went down, if you know what I’m saying,” Ortega said to Tom. “We were Government assets, waiting to ship out.”
“Define ‘assets’,” Tom said.
“A CIA wetwork team.”
The admission would’ve once been a closely-held secret. The fact Ortega said it now showed how far the world had turned that it no longer really mattered. They’d all had their share of wetwork. Ortega’s words seemed to rouse the florid Colonel Rhymes back into speech.
“A specialist team deeply embedded within the structure of the United States military machine,” the old man said. “A structure we abandoned far too early on, and one we need now, to face the present challenges.”
Rhymes picked up his glass and subtly remembered it now lacked his beverage of choice. He held the glass of water with a morose sort of anger Tom couldn’t tell if it was caused by his assistant’s confiscation or the simmering tensions clearly unresolved within the room.
“The raiders –”
“Mr Ortega,” Lowenstein snapped.
“Madam President,” the Colonel said at once. “If you keep shutting your security chief down when he’s trying to tell you something important, don’t complain when it comes around to bite you on the ass.”
Lowenstein mustered a deep breath, then turned back to Tom.
“People are tired, Mr Vanicek,” she said. “What you’re seeing here is a disagreement of principles. Some people, like Mr Earle, think we need democratic elections. Some people think only a military structure can bring the order the City needs.
“We lost a lot of people in the first weeks at Rickenbacker,” she said. “However misty-eyed some people get about it, our great American ‘military machine’ didn’t cope too well in the chaos unleashed by the Fury plague.”
“Not a plague, remember,” Hamilton smiled beside her with a shy rebuke.
“I think we can agree, whatever biological factor caused the outbreak, we can call it a ‘plague,’ Professor Hamilton.”
“That’s assuming it was a biological factor.”
“My point was, we lost a lot of the established military hierarchy at Rickenbacker within the first few weeks,” Lowenstein said. “Between the casualties and the deserters, there’s a reason why the Council . . . those of us who became the Council . . . a Council your Mr Earle here delights to call ‘The Five’ as if we’re some mysterious conspiracy . . . What I’m saying is, apart from Colonel Rhymes and his invaluable experience, none of us were exactly ‘military’.”
The Colonel growled.
“You were a ranked officer, Dana.”
“That was a long time ago,” she replied, still telling her story – their story – to Tom.
“I was Rickenbacker’s chief medical officer,” she explained. “Carlotta was the communications/encr
yptions team leader.”
“Ernest?” Tom asked.
He wondered if it was rude to commandeer the details, but any lofty pretenses to authority these very human figures might’ve sought were undone by the honest, warts-and-all discussion now underway.
“I worked in PR,” Wilhelm said.
He sauntered thoughtfully back into the room. Tom was glad his children were still eating. He’d failed to make a bigger go of it himself. He finished his water and refilled it with the juice jug Lucas had mostly finished.
Wilhelm smiled as he resumed his seat.
“I suppose that’s probably not going to subdue your natural mistrust of politicians, is it, Tom?” he said. “Does it help if I said I used to be a Staff Sergeant in the communications bureau?”
“Working for the good guys,” Tom said, though in truth he gave away nothing, glancing now to the far left of the table where Abe Ben-Gurion sat. “What about you?”
“Oh, don’t talk about people like me,” Abe said with a wink. “The Colonel doesn’t like us ‘civilians’. He hates to be reminded people like me came during the first intake.”
Ben-Gurion didn’t look the Colonel’s way, so was spared the return grimace.
“I used to have a Porsche,” the former software genius said instead. “When things got gnarly – I think that’s a surfing term, right? When things got gnarly, I ended up in a ditch with my girlfriend strapped in beside me trying to eat my face. Sanctuary was on the other side of the fence. At Rickenbacker.”
“We took in as many people as we could at first,” Lowenstein said.
“And that was our downfall.”
Ortega delivered the line quietly – but loud enough for them all to hear, and Lowenstein met it with a solemn nod.
“The Chief’s quite right,” she said. “The military leadership felt they had a duty to admit as many survivors as we could, but it was more than we could contain. There were thousands of people trapped inside an Air Force Base with the world going crazy all around them, the City, their homes, burning. It was too much. In all the madness, they breached the outer fence.”
After The Apocalypse Season 1 Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 33
