Standing at the Edge

by William Alan Webb

“You’re not going to believe it, Uncle Norm.”

  Fleming tried to keep his face grave and not show the shock he felt as she told him. “Tell Glide what’s going on. She’s to get Nipple and then both of them head to the flight deck. You go to the flight elevator and tell your husband to prep for takeoff. I’ll cover us here.”

  “Thanks, Uncle Norm. Be careful.”

  #

  Chapter 29

  Sure, I lied to you. So what?

  Nipple

  Operation Comeback

  1004 hours, April 16

  “The lieutenant may have to evacuate back to Overtime.”

  Mwangi touched his forearm. “We have a full medical staff, Norm.”

  “I know, and this is no reflection on you or Comeback, Amy. But the doctor was emphatic that if she got sicker, we take her back at once, and we agreed.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “When did I have time to go to med school?”

  “She must be important. Who is she?”

  “Lieutenant Randall is a personnel specialist under… what was that doctor’s name, Pander? Proctol?”

  “Doctor Proctor?”

  Fleming snapped his fingers. “That’s him. She’s been working closely with him.”

  “She has? And Nick the A’s okay with that?”

  “Of course. Nick doesn’t have a prejudiced bone in his body, unless you’re the enemy. He’s all for the diversity thing. He gave Doctor Proctor an office and everything.”

  “General Angriff did that? General Nick Angriff?”

  Fleming laughed, somehow able to push his rising anger deep into his mind. “Yes, that General Angriff.”

  “I hope she’s not contagious.”

  “Not according to the doctor, she’s not… well, he said probably not. If you’ll excuse me, I need to see to her for a minute.”

  “Sure, sure, I understand. Go ahead. Just let me know if they have to leave.”

  As he walked after Morgan Randall, Fleming could feel his cousin’s eyes boring into his back.

  #

  The deck elevator clanged to a stop, raising Tank Girl into the hot sun. On one bench inside her, Nipple sat with a zip-tied man in Army uniform, her undershirt stuffed into his mouth. Morgan sat strapped into the passenger bench. Joe Randall had Tank Girl ready for takeoff by the time Fleming stuck his head in the co-pilot’s window. Randall didn’t see him so Carlos tapped him on the shoulder.

  “Get out of here before they try to stop you, but get back here as fast as possible,” Fleming shouted over the engine. “And bring reinforcements.”

  Glide and Iskold had followed him during the elevator ride up from the hangar deck. As Tank Girl took off, he shouted at Glide. “Do you have any extra weapons? We may need them.”

  As Tank Girl’s turbines faded into the distance, a screech made him glance up. A prairie falcon glided on thermals overhead. He followed its flight for a few seconds until it swooped after something running across the dunes and vanished behind the sun-baked rock.

  #

  Tank Girl was off the ground and headed southwest before anyone at Comeback realized it.

  “Overtime courier aircraft, this is Comeback control. Please report your situation. Why did you leave without informing us?”

  “Comeback control, this is Ripsaw Real. We initiated emergency medical evacuation protocols for a member of our party who is having seizures and severe vomiting. Sorry we left without saying goodbye.”

  “Ripsaw Real, be advised we have full medical staff standing by. Colonel Mwangi suggests you return immediately.”

  “Negative, Comeback, patient under orders to return to Overtime and I’m under orders to take her. Also, we have Corporal Denstuhl with us, helping keep the patient under control. We will return him ASAP. Encountering turbulence; need to sign off now. Ripsaw Real out.”

  Sitting on the passenger bench beside Corporal Denstuhl, Nipple reached past the gun in her left hand and patted his cheek. Denstuhl’s nostrils flared.

  “Good boy,” she said. “I’d give you a cookie if I had one.”

  #

  Chapter 30

  Hospitality is making your guests feel at home, even if you wish they were.

  Anonymous

  Operation Overtime

  1005 hours, April 16

  Colonel B.F. Walling found Angriff on his private catwalk outside the mountain. “Sorry to interrupt, but General Steeple’s on a helicopter heading our way.”

  “General Steeple is right there.” Angriff pointed at a helicopter approaching from the northeast. “I should have known he wouldn’t wait. I guess he’ll want a tour, so let’s give him one. Arrange transport in case he wants to go into Prescott, and rustle up an honor guard and have them on the hangar deck within five minutes.”

  “Already gave the order.”

  Angriff stopped, nodded, and smiled. “You’re getting the hang of this.”

  Back in his office, he grabbed a favorite black Special Forces baseball cap with the logo Mess With the Best, Die Like the Rest flanking a skull and crossbones. Without thinking, he buckled on his double waist holster, pulled both Desert Eagles out of the top desk drawer, and slid them into the worn leather pockets. In a ritual he’d done a thousand times before, he withdrew each in turn, chambered a round, and re-holstered them. With a deep and determined breath, he went out to meet the man he despised above all others.

  #

  The best Colonel Walling could do on such short notice was round up Sergeant Schiller, Dupree, and two headquarters guards. Only the guards had rifles. With Walling leading the way, they barely got to the hangar deck in time to see General Steeple dismounting from a Sikorsky UH-60 Blackhawk. Angriff watched them come onto the platform that lined the hangar and descend one of the ladders.

  The rotors of the Blackhawk had slowed almost to a stop when Tom Steeple appeared in the cargo door’s frame. One of the crew fixed a ladder in place but Steeple paused before descending. He spotted Angriff and waited.

  And waited.

  Angriff knew Steeple waited to hear the command of atten-shun, but he wasn’t going to give it. It was a silent drama between the two of them. In the Army, you didn’t bring a room to attention when an officer entered, not if a higher-ranking officer was already present. Steeple obviously hadn’t heard that Angriff now outranked him… or hadn’t accepted it if he had. Nevertheless, neither man acknowledged the pissing contest they both knew was happening.

  After ten awkward seconds, Steeple came down the ladder, wearing a big grin. A crowd had formed around the helicopter to see the man they’d all heard about but few had ever seen before. Unknown to Angriff, Green Ghost and Vapor stood to either side, watching.

  “Well, Nick,” Steeple said without extending his hand, in round two of their top dog competition. “Here we are at the end of the world.”

  “It’s a helluva thing, Tom, a helluva thing.” Angriff smiled like Steeple was a long-lost friend, but didn’t put out his hand, either.

  “You look good. A little thin, maybe, but good.”

  “Living on LSMREs for almost a year will do that to you. You look good, too… fresh.”

  Both men understood it was a dig at Steeple’s crisp ACUs.

  “Maybe you can find me a battle,” Steeple answered.

  “I’d be glad to.”

  #

  Walling got held up at the back of the crowd.

  “Coming through, coming through,” he said, pushing forward, followed by the four members of the honor guard.

  In a purely reflexive action, one burly corporal cried out, “Hey!”

  #

  Green Ghost turned at the shout. By reflex, he slipped a Wing-Tactic knife from its sheath at his waist, holding the five-inch blade close against his leg. For a moment, all he saw was people pushing through the crowd, but then he recognized Colonel Walling and relaxed. The whole incident only distracted him for about seven seconds.

  That was enough.

 
; #

  “Ghost, tail of the bird!”

  Vapor’s warning in his earpiece brought Green Ghost around. A uniformed man passed twenty feet in front of him at a dead run, heading right for Angriff and Steeple. He ran with arms extended straight out, and clutched something in each hand, something round… hand grenades.

  “Saint!” Green Ghost yelled. The knife still filled his right hand, so he threw it in one blur of motion, knowing it was too late.

  #

  Angriff’s peripheral vision registered movement forty feet to his left and from there his reflexes took over. Using his left hand, he shoved Steeple backward, drew an Eagle with his right, spun into a crouch, and fired one-handed, all in less than two seconds. Bracing the gun with his left hand, he fired two more.

  The first round struck the running man squarely in the sternum, pulling him up short and stopping his momentum. The second hit his stomach and the third just above the second, with each impact pushing him backward. Mouth open in a silent scream, the man tottered and fell to his knees.

  “Everybody down!” Green Ghost yelled. “Down! Down!”

  Angriff threw himself on top of Steeple an instant before the grenades detonated, spraying steel splinters in a fifty-foot circle. The double bang of the explosions was followed by the tinging of metal slivers striking the walls, floor, and body of Steeple’s Blackhawk helicopter. Several in the crowd had been too slow dropping to the floor and were sprayed. Angriff himself felt a stinging in his forearm and saw a two-inch splinter sticking out.

  As the explosions echoed through the cavernous hangar, Angriff pushed up to one knee, pistol at the ready, and sought another target. When none appeared after ten seconds, he rose to his feet and held out a hand, helping Steeple get up.

  With imminent danger apparently gone, some in the crowd jumped up and ran, but most looked warily around and got to their feet. The wounded moaned as those nearby administered first aid. Walling and the guards finally reached Angriff and Steeple, circling them, on the alert for more attacks.

  Green Ghost’s hurried knife throw had missed. He retrieved the blade first, before inspecting the assassin’s body. Or what was left of it. In a search for identifying marks, he found nothing. Both arms were blown off at the elbow. The man’s uniform shirt lay in tatters under a coating of blood. Cheeks and lips were blasted away, exposing bones and teeth.

  He flipped over a hot grenade fragment with the knife point and rose. Walking over to Angriff, he retrieved the three shell casings and handed them to his commander.

  “What the hell just happened?” Steeple brushed at his uniform. Adrenaline filled his veins.

  But Angriff shrugged, feigning calmness. “Assassination attempt. It happens around here all the time. You get used to it.”

  Green Ghost fought down a grin and kept a worried frown on his face. “No I.D., no ink. If he wore a ring, it’s gone now. But I think it’s safe to say he was a buddy of Rita Watts.”

  “Why is that name familiar?”

  “She tried to kill you on day one, remember? Had the glass knife?”

  “Right, right. What was the name of their group?”

  “RSVS.”

  “They’re here?” Steeple interrupted. “The RSVS is here, at Overtime?”

  “You’ve heard of them?” Angriff said.

  “Of course I have. Hard-case Stalinists, a splinter group from Antikapitalista that thought Antikap was too soft. Domestic terrorists, violent and dedicated to the destruction of the USA and all capitalist societies… and you say you’ve had trouble with them before this?”

  “They tried to kill Saint here on wakeup day,” Green Ghost said.

  “What happened to this Watts woman?”

  “She had a fatal case of butthurt.”

  Steeple crossed his arms and scowled. “Who exactly are you?”

  Angriff laid a hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “General Tom Steeple, meet Green Ghost.”

  “The leader of the Nameless? You weren’t authorized to be here!” Steeple’s explosion forced Angriff to turn away for a second, unable to suppress his own smile. When he turned back, he looked fittingly grim.

  Green Ghost pointed with his thumb at the dead assassin. “And he was authorized to be here?”

  “How dare you speak to me that way!”

  “And how dare you not know he and his fellow thugs were here?”

  “All right, let’s all get off our hind legs and focus,” Angriff said. “Are we still in danger?” He looked at Green Ghost.

  “I doubt it. Otherwise this would have been a coordinated strike with more than just one guy. You two were targets of opportunity. I think we’re good to go for now, at least until we I.D. Hamburger Boy over there.”

  #

  Steeple fumed about being spoken to as Green Ghost had, but Angriff ignored him and insisted they tour the facility, while Green Ghost insisted they be guarded by the rest the Nameless. Steeple blanched when he heard there was an entire squad from Task Force Zombie on hand, but said nothing more.

  It took a few minutes to assemble enough emvees to transport them all, so the two generals toured the hangar deck, surrounded by Walling, Dupree, Schiller, the other two guards, Green Ghost, and Vapor. The rest of TFZ was on the way.

  As he walked through the hangar, stepping over carts filled with parts and scattered air tools, Steeple’s mood changed from irritation to wonder to fear, and back again. He stopped beside Alisa Plotz’s Comanche and stroked the smooth metal skin. Angriff noticed his hand still shook.

  “You’re missing a couple.” Steeple pointed to Tank Girl’s empty bay. A smile seemed out of place on his tense face.

  “The Comanche is at your place,” Angriff said. “We lost the Apache during last year’s fighting. And its crew.”

  “You sent a Comanche to Comeback? Why?”

  Angriff gave a half-hearted shrug. It was just like Steeple to ignore a lost crew and concentrate on himself. Moreover, he didn’t feel like explaining himself to a man he outranked and despised; merely being around Steeple felt like somebody was sandpapering the back of his neck.

  At a center point in the vastness of the hangar deck, Steeple stood akimbo and slowly turned in a full circle. “Thirty years…” he said in a low voice. “That’s how long it took me, Nick. Thirty long years since I first heard the doomsday prediction and conceived of this place, before we finally sealed it up.”

  “The guy from NASA, right?”

  “Hmmm? Oh, yes, Doctor Roger Deeson, a true patriot and visionary. I admit I thought he was crazy at first, but once I met Siree Shankur, God rest her soul, and she showed me proof that cryogenics worked… well, the result is all around us. In all those years of building this place, I only got to see it in person four times.”

  “Really? Only four times?” Despite himself, Angriff found that fascinating. It also helped his breathing return to normal after the assassination attempt.

  Steeple nodded. “I couldn’t risk it more often than that, and the last time was in… 2007 or 2008, somewhere along there. Those last years I didn’t see it at all. The last time I saw this space in person, it was just a hollowed-out cavern. And now…”

  “You did a helluva job,Tom,” Angriff said. He surprised himself by saying that out loud, but even more because he believed it. Shepherding this project for more than two decades must have taken superhuman energy. “Without you, the United States would have been gone forever.” And my family would not have been murdered.

  Four emvees pulled up and the two generals got into the second one. The one ahead carried Green Ghost and Vapor, four guards got into the second one, while Walling, One Eye, Wingnut, and Razor came in last.

  “Where’s Bettison?” Steeple asked once they were underway. “Is he meeting us up ahead?”

  “If he does, it’ll be a miracle. The last time I saw him, he looked like that assassin back there.”

  “Bettison’s dead?”

  “Very.”

  “Did you kill him
?”

  “I wish I had. He blew himself up after taking my daughter captive.”

  “He… he what?”

  Angriff told the whole story as Steeple stared straight ahead, his face sinking into a deep frown. He said nothing at all and Angriff knew he was deciding what to do next. It was like his face was a computer screen and Angriff could watch as scenarios scrolled by.

  Steeple stayed quiet as they drove into an elevator, side by side with the first emvee. The other two would have to use a different elevator up to the hydroponic farm. Before they stopped, Green Ghost and Vapor moved to either side of the elevator doors. Angriff drew both of his pistols, shifting the one with four rounds to his left hand and the one with the full magazine to his right.

  Steeple watched these preparations through slit eyes. “Are you expecting more trouble?”

  “No, but last year I wasn’t expecting an army to show up out of nowhere and attack my picket line, either.”

  “If Bettison’s dead, then who’s your head of security?”

  “Him.” He pointed at Green Ghost, who didn’t move, but kept eyes fixed on the closed elevator doors.

  #

  SECTION FIVE

  Ties

  Chapter 31

  You killed my family. Prepare to die.

  William Goldman, paraphrased from The Princess Bride

  Atop Sugar Loaf mountain, overlooking Beckworth, CA

  1246 hours, April 14

  “Is that an old airport?” Junker Jane asked Bear. “What’s it doing way out here?”

  Bear had the binoculars and adjusted them as he spoke. “Who knows why those people did what they did? It doesn’t matter any more; they’re dead. What does matter are those fuel trucks.”

  A mile and a half to the southwest, a group of Chinese vehicles formed a protective ring around three tanker trucks. Three infantry fighting vehicles, each armed with two turret-mounted guns, flanked the tankers on the north, the direction from which Bear’s tiny band would have to attack. Arrayed out front were several smaller vehicles. More vehicles protected the far side and rear. Sentries patrolled between the gaps.