by Tom Abrahams
“The wall.”
“The wall,” he repeated. “Lola and Sawyer need a fresh start, as fresh as can be had in this wasteland.”
“And you?”
Battle shrugged. “I don’t know about me. But I need to get them there.”
“It sounds to me as if you’re looking for a quid pro quo,” said Paagal. “You help us. We help you. I know Baadal discussed with you the wall and what may lie beyond.”
“He didn’t tell me what was on the other side,” Battle said. “I know the Cartel doesn’t exist north, east, or west of it.”
Juliana Paagal stared at Battle without saying anything for several minutes. Battle felt as if she were taking some sort of psychic inventory, taking mental notes without permission. He sat there, staring back at her, trying not to give away anything.
“Here’s what I want from you, Marcus Battle,” she said. “You help us defeat the Cartel, or degrade them such that they dare not attack us again, and we will help you find your way beyond the wall.”
Battle shook his head. “You can’t beat them,” he said. “They’re not only here. They’re everywhere. Abilene. Houston. Dallas. San Antonio. Austin. Galveston. You know that better than I.”
“That man, Pierce, the one you brought here is not the only spy,” she said. “We too have the ability to infiltrate.”
“Really.” It was less a question and more a doubtful dismissive.
“Ever since the truce,” she said, “we’ve been dispatching cells. They’ve lived and worked amongst the Cartel in those cities you mention. They’ve painstakingly recruited allies. All of them are ready to pounce when we signal them. We can end the Cartel. You’ve come at the right time.”
“Or the wrong time.” He sighed. “You’re talking about war.”
Paagal pressed her lips together. She scratched her left bicep and nodded. “I prefer to call it an insurrection or a revolution.”
“Semantics,” he said.
“Touché.”
“So you can beat the Cartel?”
“We believe so,” she said. “The time is upon us.”
“Then once the Cartel is beaten,” Battle said, leaning in, “I won’t need your help.”
“Yes, you will,” she said. “The Cartel is the largest, vilest of the organized groups to emerge after the Scourge. But they are not the only one. There are pockets of thieves and killers who live along the wall, who worm from one side of it to the other, feeding off of those who would cross it. You will need our help.”
Battle leaned back. He nodded. He knew he had no choice in the matter. “For being such a proclaimed pacifist, you seem eager to fight,” Battle observed. “Seems hypocritical.”
“Does it?” Paagal asked, her expression unchanged.
“I’m violent for the sake of violence,” he said. “Though I don’t like it, I admit it. It’s my cross to bear.” Battle thought about how he hadn’t prayed in days. He was losing his religion in the wilds of the untamed landscape that surrounded him. It wasn’t that he’d forgotten to pray. He didn’t feel like it.
“Interesting self-awareness,” said Paagal. “I would counter your assertion by suggesting I am for violence only because nonviolence means we continue postponing a solution.”
“Paraphrasing Malcolm X, are you?” Battle asked.
A sly grin crept across Paagal’s face, her magically white teeth aglow in the red hue of the tent. “Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery,” she said. “By any means necessary.”
CHAPTER THREE
OCTOBER 25, 2037, 7:49 AM
SCOURGE +5 YEARS
HOUSTON, TEXAS
Ana Montes was late. She hurried down the frozen escalator, her right hand sliding along the rubber railing as she descended into the darkness, her feet clomping on the aluminum steps. Even in the blackness of the underground tunnel, she knew where she was and where she needed to be. Ana stepped off the escalator threshold twenty feet below what remained of downtown Houston, Texas, and took fifteen steps straight ahead before turning ninety degrees to the right. Her footsteps echoed against the walls of the six-mile-long tunnel system, and she made another ninety-degree turn.
She could hear the hushed voices of the others. They’d begun without her. She took a deep breath and pushed her way into the room. It was lit with LED flashlights illuminating the faces of the dozen men and women who crowded around a map on a table. All of them looked up at her when she slid into the room.
“You’re late,” growled the man at the center of the group. “We had to begin without you.”
“I couldn’t get away,” she said breathlessly and found her spot at the table. From her perspective, the map was upside down. She was opposite the man in charge.
His name was Sidney Reilly. Everyone called him Sid. He was the one who’d recruited most of them to join the Dwellers’ resistance.
His eyes lingered on Ana as he spoke. “As I was saying,” he huffed, “we are getting close. Within a day, maybe two, we’ll begin. Our job—”
“That soon?” Ana interrupted. “A day or two? I don’t think—”
Sid’s eyes narrowed; the shadows cast from the flashlight deepened across his furrowed brow. “I didn’t ask what you think. We move when we move. You’re either with us or you’re not, Ana.”
Ana shrank back from the table, trying to lessen the burn from the eyes glaring at her. She nodded and bit her lower lip. “I’m with you.”
Sid nodded and continued the briefing. Ana wasn’t listening. She was looking at the men and women flanking her to either side. One by one, Sid had convinced each of them the Cartel’s rule was coming to an end. All it would take was enough people to rise up. The ones at the table bought what he was selling.
Each of them then recruited their own cadre of revolutionaries. Those people, in turn, recruited another group. It was an uprising’s equivalent of multilevel marketing, and it provided for a stopgap plausible deniability should any one person flip or be discovered by the Cartel.
In all, Sid estimated they had as many as five thousand people on board. That number, they all knew, paled in comparison to Cartel loyalists. But under the right circumstances they were large enough to deliver crippling blows to the despots in charge of their city.
Next to Sid was Nancy Wake. She was a Cartel bookkeeper who had access to the locations and depth of their provisions, illicit drugs, weapons, transportation, and other holdings. Her husband, Wendell, was a disillusioned posse boss. Together, they were the deepest penetration into the Cartel’s Houston structure.
The others around the table were a mixture of grunts, urban farmers, and shopkeepers. They offered a variety of skills and insight the revolutionaries would need if they had any chance of succeeding when the time came. The time was coming fast, too fast for Ana Montes.
Ana looked at the map of Texas. It was marked with intersecting blue and red lines. Arrows marked the direction of movements. Large and small circles indicated the revolutionaries’ strength in numbers at various locations. Close to Ana, in an area near Amarillo, Palo Duro Canyon was highlighted in fluorescent yellow.
It all seemed to be too much. She’d signed on with the belief that the revolt against the Cartel was a nebulous pipe dream unlikely to ever come to fruition. She’d agreed to do things she never thought she’d actually have to do. Now she stared at the reality of the impending action and her pulse quickened. Her knees weakened. Beads of sweat bloomed on her forehead and above her upper lip.
“Are you okay, Ana?” Nancy Wake asked, interrupting Sid. “You don’t look good.”
Ana leaned on the table, locking her elbows for support, and she nodded. She felt the return of everyone’s glare. “I’m okay,” she said. “I…”
Nancy’s eyes narrowed. “You what?”
Ana inhaled deeply and wiped her upper lip with the back of her hand. “I just…this is suicide, isn’t it? I don’t see how we can b
eat them. Their numbers are too great. They have too many weapons.”
“What are you saying?” Sid asked, his head tilted to the side. Others mumbled their concerns about Ana’s doubts. Sid raised his hand to quiet them.
“I think they’ll slaughter us,” she admitted. “I don’t want to die or end up a slave.”
Sid laughed condescendingly. “We’re already slaves, Ana. They already control most aspects of our lives. We didn’t choose them as masters.”
“They robbed us of our liberty,” said Nancy. “They duped us into believing they’d provide security and structure. And then they squeezed us of our rights. They lord over us like we’re their minions. I can’t live like that anymore. I’d rather be slaughtered.”
Others voiced their agreement. A couple questioned Ana’s loyalty, asking aloud if she could be trusted. Sid silenced them.
“You knew the stakes when I recruited you,” he said. “You knew the end game. You agreed to your role, your vital role. None of this can be a surprise to you.”
“No. Not really.” She looked down at the map, her eyes blankly tracing the colored lines on the map. “I’m not surprised. I’m afraid.” She looked up, tears stinging the corners of her eyes.
When Ana signed on, she didn’t have a reason to fear death. She wasn’t a mother yet. Now she had a nine-month-old daughter. What would happen to her child if she died? Who would raise her? What kind of woman would she grow to be if she lived to grow up at all?
Nancy spoke softly. “We’re all afraid, Ana. I’m more fearful of what will happen to us if we do nothing. Our future is sketchy if we act, it’s bleak if we don’t.”
Ana swallowed against the thick knot in her throat. Nancy was right. Sid was right. They had to act. They had to fight. They had to end the Cartel.
CHAPTER FOUR
OCTOBER 25, 2037, 8:02 AM
SCOURGE +5 YEARS
LUBBOCK, TEXAS
General Roof sat on the edge of his bed, staring out the large picture window of his temporary home. It faced east, and each morning as the sun rose, the bright orange light that filled his room forced him awake.
This morning, however, he’d been awaiting the sun. He couldn’t sleep after his phone call with Pierce. The mole had given him valuable information, which he rolled over in his mind like sheep jumping a fence. It should have helped him relax and gain the needed hours of rest.
Instead, he found himself thinking about the man Pierce had killed. That was a lamentable mistake Roof knew would be Pierce’s undoing. The general concluded that satellite call from Pierce was likely his last. The Dwellers were smart. They’d put two and two together and they’d end Pierce’s usefulness one way or the other.
Roof rubbed his eyes and slid his feet to the cold concrete floor. He tested his weight on his bad leg and felt the dull familiar ache that forced his awkward limp. He measured the difference between his two legs. One was muscular and whole. It was hairy, as a man’s leg should be, and its skin was an even creamy Caucasian tone. The other was thinner and sicklier in its appearance. Below his knee, large pinkish areas the color of a newborn’s feet were devoid of hair. The patches of transplanted skin looked like a collection of former Soviet states decorating his leg.
There wasn’t a day that passed where Roof didn’t think about the day his leg was mutilated. It was etched in Technicolor, that singularly defining day of his life. Another man had sacrificed, had put his own survival in jeopardy for his sake. It was the kind of selfless action that should have forced Roof along another path upon his return from Syria. He should have paid it forward, helping others in their daily lives.
Instead, the guilt he felt at having survived the IED and resulting ambush that killed four others had consumed him. Roof, who’d dabbled with drugs and alcohol for much of his adult life, dove headfirst into addiction. He’d been in and out of VA hospitals and homeless shelters.
He’d somehow ended up in Houston and had found help at a halfway house for vets. They’d gotten him sober, taught him business skills, and had sent him on his way with a new confidence.
Unfortunately, a hobbled recovering addict wasn’t atop employers’ “to hire” list. So Roof had taken work where he’d been able to find it and slipped into the criminal underworld of the Bayou City. He’d dealt in drugs and women and had quickly made a name for himself as a ruthless purveyor of illicit goods and underage flesh. He rose to the top of the game in a city known for being the highway for trafficking from Latin America into the United States.
He’d always worn his dog tags on the outside of his skintight shirts and had earned the street handle General. His penchant for drugging unsuspecting women and his birth name Rufus had led some to call him Roofie. He’d shortened it, combined the two monikers, and adopted General Roof as his name. His life force grew stronger, his cult of personality irresistible.
The Scourge was his deliverance. He’d emerged from the shadows, joined forces with prior competitors, and after months of work, consolidated disparate gangs into the Cartel. He’d agreed to share power with two other men, but they knew he was stronger. He’d been as fearless as Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria and Jorge Luis Ochoa Vásquez, the men who half a century earlier had founded the Medellín Cartel, and had a reputation for being as ruthless as the Salvadoran Mara Salvatrucha gang that ravaged Central America and spread to the southwestern United States in the early years of the twenty-first century.
Through brute force and will, General Roof had engaged in a meeting of the minds with the Sureños, Sinaloa Cartel, Gulf Cartel, La Familia Michoacana, Mexican Mafia, Yakuza, and Los Zetas. It hadn’t hurt his mother was Panamanian and his Spanish was impeccable.
As powerful as they had become, as much as they had struck fear into the surviving populous and had driven the government from their newly staked territory, Roof had always felt inferior somehow. Maybe it was the daily morning reminder of his external wounds. Maybe it was the internal ones, the truth that his life had been saved by a better man than he and that he’d chosen to waste that gift on the easier, darker path.
He rubbed his thighs with his palms and pushed to his feet. Roof balanced himself for a moment on his heels before rocking to his toes. He stepped to the window. The sun was lifting above the flat horizon of the southern end of the Llano Estacado. He bit his lower lip, considering whether letting Marcus Battle live was the right thing to do. It was a moment of weakness, he admitted to the imp on his shoulder. It was a payback: a life spared for a life saved. It was also probably a fatal mistake.
For as heartless as he’d become since earning his sobriety, he’d never been as tough, as relentless, as unwilling to quit as Marcus Battle. He knew that. A shiver ran along his neck and he trembled. He took a rubber band from his wrist and worked it into his hair, looping it twice to help shape a wiry, shoulder-length ponytail.
Roof scratched an itch in his thick beard and turned from the window, his feet scraping along the concrete as he moved to his clothing draped over the back of a desk chair. He’d slipped on his pants and an undershirt when there was a loud knock at his door.
“Just a minute,” he called and slid one arm into the long-sleeved plaid cotton shirt. He walked to the door and peeked through the peephole. It was Cyrus Skinner.
Roof snapped the last of the pearl buttons on the shirt and pulled open the door. Skinner took off his white hat and held it against his chest.
“Sorry to bother you so early, General,” he said, stepping into the room. “I wanted to give you a tactical update.”
“It’s not a problem,” said Roof. “I was awake. I got a call at two o’clock this morning from Pierce.” He looked over at the clock next to the bed. It was flashing. The power had gone out and come back.
“The mole?”
Roof limped back to the chair to retrieve his boots. “Yes.”
“And?”
“He gave us good intel,” said Roof. “He found their communications bunker and provided frequencies.”
> “That’s in addition to their security setup, their weapons, and the position of their men around the canyon rim,” said Skinner. An unlit cigarette was bouncing from his lips as he spoke. “You were genius to set that up. I gotta say, General, I had my doubts. But you were right.”
Roof plopped into the chair. He winced as he slid on one of the boots. “Maybe.”
“What do you mean?”
Roof exhaled and then sucked in a deep breath as he pulled on the other boot. “He killed a Dweller.”
Skinner shrugged. “So?” he asked, standing across from the general with his arms folded. “Since when is killing someone a problem?”
Roof laughed. “I don’t have a problem with killing,” he said. “I wouldn’t be where I am if I did. For the most part, I’d suggest a violent execution is the best way to maintain order and control, but not this time. Killing that Dweller exposed Pierce. He’s done.”
“We lose our eyes and ears in the canyon,” said Skinner.
“It accelerates the timetable,” said Roof, pushing himself to his feet. “That intel he gave us is going to be worthless. How fast can we move?”
Skinner pinched the cigarette with his fingers and plucked it from his dry lips. He used it as a pointer as he spoke. “That’s why I knocked on your door so early,” he explained. “I wanted to let you know we’re ahead of schedule. I’ve got grunts and bosses heading toward the canyon from all over. San Antonio’s men are already on their way. We could move on the canyon in a day and a half, maybe two days tops. We’ll end the Dwellers once and for all.”
“Good,” said General Roof, “make it happen.”
CHAPTER FIVE
OCTOBER 25, 2037, 11:45 AM
SCOURGE +5 YEARS
PALO DURO CANYON, TEXAS
Battle stopped short of the garden. He leaned against a cottonwood tree. Lola plucked cucumbers from their vines, dropping them into a basket she had cradled in the crook of her elbow.
