Redaction: The Meltdown Part II

by Andrews, Linda

  Silence elbowed into the room.

  Lister stopped next to the sagging desk and leaned over the Marine. “Where’s Lieutenant Rogers?”

  “S-she’s not answering her com, Sir.” The boy paled. “I have men searching the morgue and barracks for her.”

  “Dammit!” Lister’s bark rattled the remaining window panes. “We need to know who’s traveling with that convoy.”

  And Mavis needed to know about the threat to her niece. David pivoted on his heels and strode to the door.

  “Stop right there, Sergeant-Major.” Lister’s footsteps pounded the cement. “You will not tell the Doc about this, do you understand? Despite taking advantage of your Army assets, Doctor Spanner is working for the good of her niece. If something happens to that girl, I’ve no doubt the Doc would consign us all to Hell.”

  Not tell Mavis? Fuck! She wasn’t going to forgive him. But he couldn’t let his men down either.

  “You’re still in the army, Sergeant-Major, and I gave you a direct order.” Lister’s words pelted his back. “That goes for the rest of you. This information doesn’t leave this room.”

  From the corner of his eye, he watched the officers nod.

  “Understood, Sergeant-Major?”

  “Yes, Sir.” He understood alright. Mavis’s niece wasn’t the only one in danger.

  “Go get some coffee, six cups. Black.” Lister rubbed his hands together. “From here on out, any action taken against the military will be punishable by death. Anyone disagree?”

  He wanted to. These were his fellow Americans, people he’d fought hard to save, to keep alive. David stepped outside, closed his eyes and turned his face up to the darkness. God, what a day and the sun hadn’t even risen.

  Not one officer had voted down the proposal.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “I love you too, Sunnie.” Mavis released the talk button of the walkie.

  “See you tonight in Winslow, Aunt Mavis.” Sunnie coughed. “‘Bye.”

  “Bye.” Mavis didn’t bother pushing the button again. She’d already kept her niece on the line long after she should have let her go. It was just so good to hear from Sunnie that she was feeling better. Although her throat had to be killing her. Good thing Johnson knew the aspirin trick.

  Sunnie would need it.

  Mavis stretched inside the sleeping bag. Her toes brushed the frigid zipper at the bottom and she shivered. Good Lord, it was cold out. She checked her watch in the light cast by the electric lantern by her head.

  Five-forty.

  David should be showing up soon. Tucking the walkie under her pillow, she rolled over and inhaled his spicy scent. She hoped he would be on time. She felt like celebrating.

  Something scratched at the tent fabric.

  She rolled over. A woman’s silhouette crawled up the side of her tent. No. No, no. No! She was supposed to have another fifteen minutes. She pulled the pillow over her head. Maybe if she pretended to be asleep, they’d go away until six.

  “Doctor Spanner?” A woman’s voice seeped through the tent walls.

  Mavis peered out from underneath the pillow. She knew that voice.

  “Ma’am?”

  Her brain clicked. The Lieutenant she’d asked to run a background check on Reverend Trent P Franklin, or whatever his real name was. “Sally?”

  “Yes, Ma’am. Can I come in? I need to show you something.”

  Well, crap. Mavis pushed her hair out of her eyes and sat up. Her bottom sunk through the air mattress to land on the ground. Cold crept down her back. “Sure, come in.”

  Sally’s silhouette reached for the zipper and pulled it down. As the flap curled open, the lieutenant came into view. Fatigue bruised the skin under her bloodshot eyes. Wrinkles scored her cheek and a bar indented the soft tissue. “Sorry to wake you, Ma’am, but I thought you’d want to see what I’ve found.”

  Mavis bit her lip. She hadn’t meant for the poor girl to work all night long. Still… Her gut clenched. If it was about Reverend Trent, she doubted it could be good. Wind whistled inside the tent and bulged out the back. Wiggling her weight, she tugged the sleeping bag up her back and around her shoulders. “Come in.”

  “Thank you, Ma’am.” Crouching, Sally hop-walked inside the tent. After securing the door, she set her tablet on the canvas floor.

  Up close, she looked more tired than Mavis felt. “Have you had any coffee?”

  “A gallon or two.” Sally swiped at the drool mark at the corner of her mouth then picked up her tablet. Her lips firmed as she glared at it. “I’d been asleep for about twenty minutes when my tablet chimed.”

  “I appreciate your dedication.” Mavis unburied one arm. The frigid air chased goosebumps across her skin. “What have you found?”

  “Nothing under the names Benjamin Trent or Trent P Franklin,” Sally spat. “I had to run his fingerprints that I gathered during check in. As you know, they weren’t complete because he hadn’t been willing to give them but there’s no mistaking that smirk.”

  Sally slapped the screen, turned it around and handed it to her.

  Mavis took a deep breath. Please let it be something she could use to control or eliminate the threat the man presented. Please. She waited for the gyro built into the tablet to settle. A clean shaven man with blue eyes and sandy hair smiled back at her. No, smile was too nice. There was a superior edge to it. Definitely a smirk.

  Definitely the Reverend.

  She scanned down the page to the vitals collected. “Trent Powers.”

  “Insurance salesman.” Sally’s laugh sounded hollow. She raked her fingers through her hair, creating furrows down to her scalp. “How far from a man of God can you get?”

  Mavis shrugged. She’d known some decent salesmen and women. But the fact that he’d lied about being clergy should help her smash whatever alliance Trent and Dirk Benedict were building.

  But it might not be enough to kill it.

  Lots of folks looked up when they were neck deep in shit.

  “Anything else?” Something she could use to make sure Trent never threatened her or hers again.

  Sally rubbed her eyes and sighed. She seemed to collapse into a ball. “Of course, there is. I couldn’t sleep with just a liar and a slimy salesman.”

  The lieutenant rose on her knees and opened a new tab. The picture came into focus. A woman’s body dangled from a loft. Her neck lolled to the side as if broken but a office chair stood about a foot under her toes. Why would she have the chair if she jumped off the loft? The hair on Mavis’s neck rose.

  “This is Denise Powers, his wife.” Sally growled. “Ex-wife, I should say. He’s wanted for questioning in her murder.”

  Yes, he did have that Ted Bundy-esque charm. Her fingers scrolled through the report. “There’s no fingerprints at the scene, just footprints leading away from the house.”

  “He was the sole beneficiary of the wife’s life insurance policy.” Sally rolled back on her heels until she sat on the floor. “He blamed her for the deaths of their kids and has two domestic violence calls against him during their marriage.”

  Motive was good, but was it enough? The evidence was still circumstantial and… Mavis’s heart sank. And David had collected the evidence. It didn’t matter that they hadn’t been involved at the time. Appearances were all that mattered. And to many it would appear that she and the military were colluding to eliminate a man of the faith.

  And it would appear that she was colluding with the military to railroad a man of God. She had absolutely no doubt, Trent Powers would cling to the sham of ministry until the last.

  “What else?”

  Sally’s eyes widened. “That’s not enough?”

  Mavis shook her head and hand the tablet back. “You’ve met him, been charmed by him. He’s good at hiding his true self.”

  She’d give the scumball that. Good thing, she was better. Experience with despots, tyrants and dictators had made her that way. Her hands curled into fists, nails dug into her p
alms. Unfortunately, she couldn’t just put a bullet in his head and throw his body in the mounds of corpses.

  She was in a position of power, with the military at her beck and call.

  One misstep and she would be accused of being a despot, tyrant or dictator. Not exactly a good position if she hoped to created a new civilization.

  “This should do it then.” Sally called up another page and tossed the tablet in Mavis’s lap. “If this doesn’t convince you that the dog needs to be put down, I don’t know what will.”

  Bits of bone shone through the blobs of skin and black blood. Only the one perfect eyeball behind a slit lid told Mavis it was a face. A human face. Bile soured her mouth. God, who would do such a thing? But she knew.

  “His fingerprints are at the scene of the crime, on a wineglass and fork, no less.”

  Mavis nodded, scrolling through the list of evidence. “There’s a witness.”

  “Yeah.” Sally hunkered low in her jacket. “Emmanuel Saldana, aged seventeen. He saw Trent throw the woman’s body off the balcony into a pile of hungry rats.”

  The bastard probably hoped the vermin would get rid of the evidence for him. Mavis shoved off the sleeping bag and reached for the wad that was her jacket. After stuffing her arms inside the cold, stiff fabric, she stomped into her shoes. “Where is Trent Powers now?”

  “I don’t know.” Sally shrugged. “I haven’t really looked for him. And he definitely hasn’t searched me out. Are you going to arrest him?”

  Hooking the walkie to her waist, she crawled for the exit. “I have to consult with David, er, Sergeant-Major Dawson and General Lister first.”

  She had to keep the military out of it as much as possible. The last thing she needed was people to start mistrusting the folks with the guns. Someone might get shot. Grabbing the tablet, she opened the door and stepped outside.

  “And then are you going to arrest him?”

  “Something like that.” If no one has seen him, she’ll just put a bullet through his head and pretend he was one of the ones who were swept away by the river last night. If folks had seen him…. Then she’d have to think of plan B.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Hey!”

  Manny jumped at the sound of Irina’s voice. His ear rang for a moment and he stuck his finger inside it. The engine of the personnel carrier rumbled through him. He swayed on the bench to the motion. “What did you yell at me for?”

  Sitting on his left, she grinned then winced. Green ringed the purple bruises on her jaw and temple. “Because you were snoring.”

  “Are we boring you, Manny?” On his right, Beth elbowed him. Her bruises were just a tad fresher from the pervert that tried to rape her in her father’s church.

  A church for pity’s sake. Manny rubbed his ribs. “I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

  He’d been with the soldiers looking for the bodies of last night’s drowning victims. And finding them. His stomach tossed the vanilla milkshake he’d had in his morning MRE. He swallowed it down and rubbed the image off his eyes. His parents had looked peaceful when they’d died. Not so, those poor people.

  Beth bit her bottom lip. A curtain of black hair covered her face. “Then I guess we’ll let you sleep.”

  “Just don’t snore.” Irina set her head on his shoulder. “Or we’ll wake you up again.”

  “I don’t snore.” Manny glanced across the aisle of the personnel carrier.

  A man twisted the crucifix hanging from a thick gold chain around his neck. Black chest hair waved from the vee of his unbuttoned polo shirt. His gaze narrowed; it bounced from Irina to Beth.

  Manny glared back at him. What? They were friends. He hadn’t beaten them up. He choked down his anger. They should never have listened to the Benedict fellow who told them to separate from Henry, his wife, Mildred and Connie and the niños.

  “You do too.” Irina opened her mouth and made an obnoxious sound. “That’s exactly like what you sound like.”

  “No. No.” Beth reached across him to tap Irina on her jean-clad knee. She made a bizarre honking noise that ended on a loud snort. “That’s what he sounds like.”

  Like he needed to hear bad snoring in stereo. He’d better change the topic. “Aren’t you supposed to be helping the girls?”

  He jerked his head toward the dozen teenagers sitting near the front of the personnel carrier. Three sat on the floor but they all whispered across and around each other.

  “Nah,” Irina dismissed them with a wave of her hand. “They weren’t raped or anything. The Sergeant-Major and his men saved them.”

  From rape. “They were chained together like animals.”

  Most had rings of torn skin on their wrists. He rubbed his own. He knew what that was like.

  Beth set her hand over his. For a moment, her fingers dug into his thumb. “Relax. They’re talking about it between themselves. Because they understand. They were there.”

  And who did Beth talk to about her experience now that Henry wasn’t around? He set his hand over hers. “How are you doing?”

  “Good.” She smiled and pulled her hand away. “It helps that I fought him off then ran him off with my father’s gun. I wasn’t helpless…”

  But she was for a time. He heard it in her voice. And that scared him. Hell, he knew what helpless felt like. Everyone here did.

  He pushed off the bench, lifted his hands over his head and stretched.

  Irina tugged at his pants. “Hey, where you going? You should sleep. At lunch, we’ll rejoin Mildred and Connie then you’ll have to watch the niños all day.”

  A smile wiggled over the man with the crucifix’s lips.

  Unease settled in Manny’s gut. What was that about?

  The man arched an eyebrow.

  Manny stared out the back of the truck. He blinked. “Hey! There’s no truck behind us!”

  Silence filled the interior for a moment, then fabric rustled. People groaned.

  Beth stood in front of him. “Where are the soldiers?”

  “Everyone sit down.” The man with the crucifix’s voice boomed inside.

  Irina dug her nails into his back.

  “Now!”

  The girls from the school yelped. One started crying.

  What the fuck! Manny squared his shoulders. “We need to let the driver know that the other trucks aren’t there.”

  “You stupid, boy?” The man leapt from his seat and stuck his face in Manny’s.

  He wasn’t a stupid boy.

  Irina tugged on his shirt and pulled him backward. “It’s alright. We’re sitting.”

  His knees hit the bench but he didn’t sit. It wasn’t right.

  “Please, Manny.” Beth’s voice broke on his name. She tugged on his arm with both of hers.

  Manny gave in to their pleas and dropped to the bench.

  “Don’t give me any trouble, boy.” The man grinned. “And I won’t need to make an example of you.”

  Clamping his jaw shut, Manny trapped the swear words in his head. The soldiers would make an example of the man once they caught up and he’d be there to rip that cross from the man’s neck.

  “As you can see, there’s been a change of plans.” The man opened his shirt enough to show a knife inside. “You’re no longer under the soldier’s protection, but my little group’s. Cooperate and things won’t be so bad.” He nodded to Manny. “If you don’t, things will get quite unpleasant.”

  Irina and Beth leaned against his arms. Their trembling woke something inside him. Anger faded. Stop. Observe. Think. Plan. He could do this. He would do this. And when opportunity arose, he would act.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  A cold wind drove through Mavis’s fleece jacket, scouring the heat from her body. She wrapped her arms around her belly and hunched her shoulders. “Holy Mother of God! When did we reach the Arctic Circle?”

  Her words hung on a cloud in the air.

  Holding a tablet in her left hand, Lieutenant Sally Rogers threw open h
er arms and embraced the frigid wind. “I just love the cold, don’t you?”

  Obviously the poor girl had suffered brain trauma. No sane person loved the cold. It was too damn cold. Mavis stomped her feet. Three seconds out in it and she was already losing feeling. Pain needled her nose and ears. “Let’s check the cafeteria. Lister and Sergeant-Major Dawson are probably eating.”

  She placed the wooden stumps that had once been feet, one in front of the other. The wind snatched at her jacket and she tucked her bare hands under her armpits. Her teeth chattered and pushed into the gale.

  Sally shook her head. Strands of brown hair escaped from the clip at the base of her neck. “I just came from there.”

  “We’ll get a cup of coffee then and ask around.” Wrapping the mug with her hands and drinking the scalding brew would help her defrost from the inside out. “Some one will know where they’ve gone.”

  A general couldn’t just disappear.

  “Yes, Ma’am.” Red blossomed in the lieutenant’s cheeks and her eyes twinkled despite the bags of fatigue.

  A Marine in an olive drab teeshirt and brown and tan ACU pants pushed open the latrine door. It slammed against the blue port-o-john with the help of the wind. His gaze leapt wildly around the camp then landed on them. “Sally.” His step faltered when he spied Mavis and he drew up short. “Er, Ma’am.”

  Jealousy flared deep inside before being snuffed out. Men were always warm, the lucky devils. She shifted to the side so his massive frame blocked the wind. “Have you seen General Lister or Sergeant-Major Dawson?”

  “Yes, Ma’am. I just came from them.” His Adam’s apple bobbed in his thick neck. “They sent me to find the lieutenant.”

  “Good.” Her nose twitched when it caught the aroma of fresh roast. Coffee first or the military? She scanned the camp. Soldiers ferried loaded stretchers out of the barracks. Hushed voices and soft snores swirled on the gusts. Dawn lightened the black clouds as the sun peeked over the mountains. She waited for the hair on her neck to stand up or her stomach to clench.

  Neither happened.

  Still, Trent Powers and his predators in training would no doubt have been plotting during the night. She must anticipate whatever he planned and begin her offensive. Besides, if he was still in camp, there still might be time to plan a little accident. Longing swept through her. Coffee would have to wait but not for long. She smiled at the Marine. After all, what good was power if you didn’t occasionally use it?