by Dana Fraser
Fields choked down a nervous lump before answering. “Yes, General.”
Billows nudged the remote control on his desk toward the major. Fields picked it up and activated the sixty-inch screen on the wall opposite the general’s desk. He approached the screen, the single piece of paper trembling in his hand.
“AI estimates a forty percent population decrease for the United States as of this morning,” he started, sweat breaking out along his forehead. “Canada is predicting similar numbers, as is Europe.”
“Mexico?” the general asked.
Fields rolled his lips. “Fifteen percent, sir. Similarly low decreases are also reported for the African continent and significant portions of Asia.”
“Disappointing but understandable,” Billows conceded. “It’s not the absence of electricity and fuel that will destabilize them, but the loss of chaos control the West provided. When they realize the U.N. will no longer interfere, they’ll start hacking off one another’s limbs as they’ve always done.”
Fields nodded vigorously. “AI estimates third world population decline will reach fifty percent by the end of the year.”
“And the U.S.?”
“By the end of the year, General?”
Billows nodded.
“Ninety percent of the aboveground population.”
Fields’ presentation excluded any information on the health and comfort of the civilian underground population as Billows’ command was tasked exclusively with decimating that portion of the U.S. population deemed undesirable or obstructive to the goals of Project Erebus regardless of how much an individual had previously contributed to society.
There was no room for bleeding hearts in the bunkers.
A soft smile unfurled along the general’s usually stern mouth. Closing his eyes, he leaned back in his chair, his elbows raised and his hands clasped behind his head.
“Troop morale?” the general questioned.
The images of Lieutenant Paisley resurfaced, a taste of Fields’ lunch spilling into his mouth as his stomach turned sick.
Christ on a four-by-four left two holes open for entertainment.
“Ninety-eight percent positive, General.”
Opening his eyes, Billows lifted a brow.
“We are weeding the other two percent out, sir.”
“Now tell me about my lambs,” Billows ordered.
A fresh coating of sweat dotted Fields’ face. He could feel his pits begin to drool, his body turning rigid as he tried to operate the touchscreen without dislodging the wadded paper towels he had shoved under his arms.
A drone image of Dr. Carter appeared on the screen. With a tap, Fields launched a slideshow that pieced together several images from the same time frame.
“One of the Kentucky detachments unwittingly targeted Dr. Carter in a field fire.”
Billows’ chair creaked.
“She survived,” Fields blurted. “We also have visual confirmation that her brother is traveling with her, as is the male we identified in earlier drone shots.”
“Identified?” Billows’ voice dripped sarcasm.
“With these new photos, yes, General.” With another tap, Fields brought up a military ID photo of Sergeant First Class Cash P. Bishop. “He finished a ten year enlistment three years ago, heavily decorated, two purple hears, a bronze star. Entered service straight out of high school, ninety-nine on his ASVAB—”
“White Trash Beautiful,” Billows mused.
Fields cast a confused glance at his commanding officer. The general waved away the questioning look.
“So we now know where this Bishop lives and where he may be headed with Hannah?”
Sphincter tightening, Fields cleared his throat before answering. “He has a concealed carry permit and a commercial driving license, both issued by the state of Tennessee, but the physical address given is…”
Fields had to mentally reach inside his mouth and pull out the rest of his words knowing the General would be livid.
“An attorney’s office.”
Purple rage colored Billows’ face.
“Go back to the video,” he ordered through tight lips.
Fields tapped through to the drone images. They showed Hannah running through the cornfield, Bishop in front of her, her hair and outer jacket catching fire, Bishop turning back, scooping her up, racing for a ditch filled with water.
Billows stared at the images, the fingers on one hand rubbing along the base knuckles of the other hand.
“The Senator will be very interested in this man,” he said after another minute of quiet contemplation. “Do you think he loves her?”
Forcing down the urge to shrug, Fields tapped back to Bishop’s service record. “I believe the sergeant’s record demonstrates he would have acted similarly without an emotional attachment to Dr. Carter. The drone footage is insufficient to reach specific conclusions.”
His response produced a dry laugh from the general.
“Exactly the kind of man we could never include in Project Erebus, same for Colonel Sand.”
The major nodded, the muscles of his neck reluctant to agree. He’d served with Thomas Sand as a First Lieutenant. He had aspired to be like the Colonel at one point. Then he decided he would prefer to live a long, comfortable life, which meant latching on to Project Erebus.
Affiliating himself with Project Erebus meant working to sabotage Thomas Sand’s threat assessment app, ensuring that the retired colonel couldn’t piece together the separate points of Project Erebus in a way that revealed the whole of the plan until it was too late. It had also included recruiting, or otherwise eliminating, any potential allies of the colonel who had sufficient public credibility to sound the alarm and being the project to the public’s attention.
“What of the Sands?” Billows queried.
Zooming in on the photo, Major Fields pointed to a dark head, then skipped forward a few pictures to a magnification of the teen’s face. “This is Ellis Sand traveling with his sister at the time this was taken, sir. We also have a forensics report for the school in Bonnie, Illinois. It appears he fashioned a shotgun out of pipes, something we didn’t learn from the survivor before his death. Sand’s fingerprints were all over the supply cabinet in the chemistry lab and we obtained disciplinary records from his high school in Evansville. With both her brother and Sergeant Bishop traveling with her, AI has assigned a high probability for Dr. Carter surviving past the end of the year.”
“What does AI say about our finding her before then?” Billows asked, his tone turning dangerous.
“We are searching for last known addresses on relatives and acquaintances for Sergeant Bishop. We will interrogate those we find. Once we have his residence, we will plot out likely routes between the last spotting of Dr. Carter and Sergeant Bishop’s home.”
“Start with the attorney,” Billows ordered.
“Sir?”
“If he’s still alive, find him and interrogate him. He’ll have the address where he sent his invoices.”
Leaving his desk, Billows walked over to the touchscreen and brought up the file on Thomas Sand. He tapped on location, his perfect posture drawing tighter at the listing.
UNKNOWN
He cut a glance at Fields, the man’s face shiny with fresh sweat.
“Theories?”
The question was a trap and Fields knew it. The general was a man of action, not theory. He seemed to hold intellectual pursuits in disdain even as he reaped their benefits.
“We are operating under the assump — under the premise that he is alive and attempting to rendezvous with his family. He was in D.C. when the riots erupted, but all the identifiable dead have been cataloged, General. And no match has been identified in the system.”
Tapping through to Becca Sands, Billows stopped and stared. Fields opened his mouth to speak then snapped it shut.
Whatever alien emotion was crawling along Billows’ face, Fields couldn’t identify it. He was hesitant to speak before he knew in w
hich direction the general’s emotions were running.
Curiosity?
Pleasure?
“Shame, she is an asset I would have liked not to lose track of,” Billows said after a long pause.
“We have her on the detain list if she shows up at any of the FEMA camps or is stopped at an official check point,” Fields confirmed as the paper with its talking points grew damp in his hand.
“Her doctoral work on data mining was essential to Project Erebus,” Billows said as he tapped to bring up a high-resolution photo of the woman.
Putting the presentation together, Fields had been struck by how similar in appearance Rebecca Sand and Hannah Carter were. They were mother and daughter, so a family resemblance was expected, but an undergraduate picture of Dr. Sand was only distinguishable from a picture of her daughter at the same age by the era to which the clothes belonged and a slight difference in height.
“Without her formulas, we wouldn’t have known what events to manufacture in our crisis initiation operations or where to manufacture them.”
“That isn’t in her file, sir,” Fields responded.
“No, but not everything makes it into files, Fields — remember that.” Another flicker of that unnameable emotion crossed Billows features. “I would have liked to walk with her through the server rooms, shown her the algorithms that helped us march straight up to the tipping point and give it that one last push.”
“We are working to find her, sir,” Fields offered. “If she is still alive.”
Billows shrugged then brushed his hands together.
"If not the mother, then the daughter. Find Dr. Carter, Fields, that is a direct order.”
Swallowing down the lumpy fear that clogged his throat, Fields offered a smart salute and turned on one heel. A direct order meant he could not fail.
To Billows' warped mind, failure was insubordination.
Insubordination was treason.
Treason was death.
That was the new world order.
Chapter Nine
Crouched behind a tree trunk ten feet from the north side of the barn on the Bishop-Lodge homestead, Banker Lee watched as Marie stepped onto the porch, a shotgun in hand.
For two nights and a day, he’d been waiting for her to come out alone or just with her kids. But there was some black family there, a complicating factor that made his blood boil.
At least that brother of hers looked to have vanished. Of course, the man could be out setting traps or sitting in a blind waiting for a nice fat deer to saunter by.
If he didn’t see Cash before he had an opportunity to get Marie alone, Banker Lee would get the information out of her real quick.
But first he needed her alone.
With hungry eyes, he watched her step off the porch. Seeing her scan the tree line, he slunk back, willing himself to be invisible.
With just Fino’s knife, he needed to come up on her from behind and execute a blitz attack that would let him get the shotgun away and cover her mouth before she screamed and warned the others.
The screen door banged shut. Banker Lee peeked around the trunk again, foul words spilling silently from his lips. Wherever she was headed, Marie wasn’t going alone. She had the two teens with her, the older girl carrying a rifle.
Watching them step away from the house, he calculated his chance of sneaking inside where it was just the two younger kids, the old lady and a woman he figured was the teens’ mother or older sister.
He was still scheming on that plan when his brain did a double take. The teens had split off from Marie and were headed south away from the house and barn.
Marie, sweet, sweet Marie, was headed, oh, yes she was, she was headed straight toward Banker Lee.
He pedaled backwards, the many years he’d spent hunting woods exactly like these letting him retreat without a sound.
“Gabby,” Marie called.
She wasn’t yelling, but her voice sounded worried, frantic even. Fascinated, Banker Lee stared at her face, his body growing hard at the fear he saw stamped across her strong features.
Yeah, he’d known she was a fine looking woman, but it had never sunk in before why she filled his fantasies. It was that look on her face, the one she wore at that moment calling out for her daughter.
He wanted to strip away the icy pride and see the fear, know it was him, his power over her and all she loved, that brought the fear.
A quiver ran through him as he faded deeper into the woods. She passed less than twenty feet from him without noticing his presence. At fifty feet, her voice started to fade and he used how well he could hear her call out as the measure for when it was time to shorten the distance between them.
When they were about a third of a mile from the house, Marie came to the stream that cut through the property. The ground had a steep slope. She paused at the top between two trees standing close enough to touch along their caps. Curling one hand around the trunk of the tree on her left, she called out Gabby’s name.
Her other hand kept a loose grip on the shotgun, the stock under her arm and her fingers around the barrel. As close as the trees were to one another, Banker Lee calculated that she wouldn’t be able to swing around in a hurry without losing the weapon.
He launched himself across the twenty feet that separated them, his gaze locked on the back of Marie’s head. Hearing his feet pounding against the ground, she started to turn, her daughter’s name on her lips and the shotgun still lightly cradled.
Her turn went wild when she saw it wasn’t Gabby but Banker Lee. The shotgun hit the tree, falling to the ground. It slid down the incline. Marie jumped for it, so did Banker Lee.
Their bodies collided, his momentum knocking her down. He landed on top of her and grabbed at her hands as she reached for the shotgun.
“So close,” he mocked, pressing harder against her, his heavy body making it difficult for Marie to breathe. “So close you can smell the gunpowder, can’t ya?”
Her mouth opened, her lungs pulling in every last molecule of oxygen before releasing a scr—
His face crashed down, thick lips opening wide to cover hers, his mouth absorbing her scream as his tongue thrust against hers.
Howling, he reared back, tongue bleeding, his fist raised in the air, her hands free but her entire body immobilized from fear as his meaty fist swung down.
Not the face, not yet…
Banker Lee punched Marie’s throat, jerking back on the force delivered at the last moment to keep from crushing her windpipe with a killing blow.
Her eyes went wide and her body limp. She wheezed, the secondary pain from trying to breathe dilating her pupils until they all but burst through the iris.
Rolling away, Banker Lee grabbed the shotgun and stood up.
“Didn’t want to do that,” he said, his dark gaze boring into her. “You learn how to obey me, won’t be anybody hurting.”
He chose his words carefully. Not the “obey” part but the “anybody.” He wanted far more than obedience from the proud beauty. He wanted total subjugation, the kind he’d seen his father exercise over his mother and the sluts his father brought home for a few weeks or days at a time.
To get the complete submission he craved, he would hurt anybody Marie cared about and make her watch while he did it.
Placing the shotgun out of reach, he pulled out Fino’s knife and motioned her to roll onto her stomach.
The damn bitch resisted so he had to fling her over.
“You’re gonna get your for real lesson tonight when we get back to the house,” he warned, cutting off one of her sleeves to use as binding for her wrists.
Turning Marie onto her back, Banker Lee tied her shoelaces together then retrieved the shotgun and dragged her back up the slope to the biggest tree in sight.
With his back against the trunk, he put the shotgun down and stroked at her dark brown hair, explaining to her his vision of their perfect life together.
> Night fell before Banker Lee forced Marie to return to the house. He hadn’t gotten an honest answer out of her about Cash, but her eyes told the truth when her tongue lied.
Not that she could talk much. But her expression told him little brother was long gone, dead for all she knew.
There was no one to protect her — no one but Banker Lee.
Pride surged through him as they reached the perimeter of the house and outbuildings, the area illuminated by floodlights. Everyone around Dover had thought he was good for nothing but petty crimes and violence. Many of those people were dead or missing after the lights had gone out.
They all thought he would never accomplish anything, but he had survived in prison when it had turned into a playground for sadistic guards. He had escaped the Mexican cartel and now he was about to become the owner of a fine homestead and an even finer woman.
Marie screamed a warning, the sound carrying no further than a few feet.
Banker Lee dragged the woman to the middle of the clearing.
Pointing the barrel of the Remington 1100 semi-automatic 12 gauge in the air, he whispered in her ear. “That’s not how you get their attention, darling.”
Banker Lee pulled the trigger, a thunderclap echoing in the air above them.
Bringing the shotgun down, he leveled it across Marie’s shoulder as the lights went out inside the house and the front door flew open.
Eleanor Bishop hobbled out the door, a rifle in her hand. Seeing Banker Lee’s face, the fierce set of her jaw crumbled, her mouth turning slack.
“Hey, mom,” he called, voice going high. “You don’t mind if I call ya that seeing how we’re going to be family and all — do ya?”
Bringing his mouth close to Marie’s ear, he whispered words meant just for her. “Not to mention how my real mother is dead because you had me locked away.”
A wheezing protest escaped Marie’s lips, the vocal chords too bruised to shape words.
From the doorway, the tip of another long gun pushed against the screen. With the house’s interior dark, all Banker Lee could tell was that it was one of the bobbleheads holding the gun.
