by Riley Flynn
The cold prickled the skin of her cheeks as they looked out onto the untouched field of white. Once, when she was eight, her mom had taken her to the Alps. She had never seen any more than just a dusting of snow before that, and she’d been enthralled by the mountain winter scene. It was like a Christmas card come to life. They had made a snowman and skated on a lake and had a snowball fight. It was one of her favorite memories, just the two of them having so much fun together that they didn’t even pay attention to their freezing fingers and runny noses.
It gave her an idea. An awesome idea.
18
Fast Lanez was deserted when Maggie got there, and cold; since it had been knocked off the grid during the quake, there was nothing to heat it. Not that it mattered, since the majority of the people who used to frequent it were now housed at the Broadmoor, and the army had moved its supply depot to an empty building about a block from the old nursery.
Smith hadn’t given her any details over the radio when he’d asked to meet her here, which made her nervous. Had he found Farries? She hoped that was the case, because if it were anything else, it almost certainly wouldn’t be good news.
“Sheriff.”
She almost jumped out of her skin. Keep it together, she scolded herself as she turned to see Smith standing in the doorway that separated the front and back of the building.
“Colonel. Mind telling me why we couldn’t meet somewhere else?”
He cocked his head. “Because what I have to show you is here.”
Ask a stupid question…
“All right,” she sighed. “What am I here to see?”
He motioned for her to follow him into the back. Little puffs of vapor escaped from her mouth in the afternoon light streaming in through the windows. That quickly faded in the back of the building, where Smith was guiding the way with his periscope-style Fulton flashlight. He led her past a pair of doors before stopping at a third. He shone the light on the middle of the door, illuminating the universal symbol for the men’s room.
“What’s this about?” she asked, her stomach suddenly knotting.
He pushed open the door and trained the Fulton on the filthy tile floor. About three feet from the sink was an open door to a large utility closet; inside was what looked like a heap of laundry. A quick flash of the light showed her what she had already suspected: it was Ross’s dead body.
She swallowed hard. “It’s that drunk guy from the other night,” she said, trying to keep her voice even. “I assume he’s dead?”
“As a doornail,” said Smith. “I came across him this morning when I opened the closet.”
“What were you doing here?”
“I figured since this was the last place I saw Brad Farries, it might jog my memory, help me figure out where he might be now.”
“Instead you found this guy. Why call me instead of the corpse removal detail?”
Smith scratched the back of his neck with a gloved hand. The look on his face was less bland than usual, as if he was contemplating bad news.
“Look, Sheriff—”
“Maggie,” she said. “Remember?”
He nodded. “Maggie. I—well, I’ll just come right out and say it: I watched the man on the floor go into the men’s room with Maj. Price that night, and I noticed that only Maj. Price came back out.”
Her stomach dropped. “What are you saying?”
“Not implying anything,” he said, holding his hands at chest height, palms forward. “Just stating a fact. I never thought anything of it at the time, but when I stumbled across our friend here, I suddenly remembered. I also remembered overhearing this man—Ross, I think was his name?—bothering you about something. He said something about you selling him mushrooms. Again, I dismissed it at the time. But now, finding him like this… I have to say, Maggie, it raises some questions.”
She stood in silence, unable to think of anything to say. Her world had just rocked again, almost as badly as the night of the earthquake: Smith, of all people, had stumbled onto her secret, or at least suspected something was out of place. And she didn’t know what to think about Ross’s death—could Price really have killed him that night? If he did, it had to have been an accident.
Are you absolutely positive about that? You’ve seen Brian in action. He’s a trained fighter and he doesn’t pull his punches.
“Like I said, I’m not implying anything,” Smith said. “I decided to call you first so that you can report it to the removal detail. Take me right out of the equation.” He fixed his gaze on hers. “Do you understand what I’m saying? If there’s an investigation, I can’t lie to my superiors. But if no one ever thinks to ask me any questions in the first place, because there is no investigation, then neither of us has anything to worry about. Neither does Maj. Price.”
Maggie thought quickly. Smith was offering her an out in the situation, if she was willing to take it. Had he figured out that she wasn’t who she claimed to be? It seemed impossible, but he was no idiot: it would occur to him that Price wouldn’t have done anything to Ross without a good reason. So many variables, but they all added up to one thing: he was her only shot at getting out of the situation intact.
But at what cost?
“I appreciate that,” she said finally. “And you’re right, I don’t see how any good could come from an investigation that would ultimately turn out to be nothing. I mean, we both know that Brian Price would never intentionally hurt a civilian, let alone kill one.”
“Of course he wouldn’t,” Smith said with a smile. “Not even if he was defending someone he cared about.”
Her heart gave a little kick.
“I don’t think he cares about anyone besides himself,” she said, forcing herself to smile back.
“You’re probably right. Anyway, I’ll get out of your way so you can call this in.”
“Thank you.” The relief she felt was palpable. She just wanted this over.
“Before I go, though, there was something I wanted to discuss.” He must have seen the alarm in her eyes because he quickly said: “Not to do with this. I was just thinking that, since your partner is out of commission for the time being, I could maybe help you find Farries and bring him in.”
“I could use all the help I can get. Thank you.”
He took a few steps to bridge the space between the two of them and lowered his voice.
“Maggie, I’m going to tell you something that very few people know, although I’m sure some suspect: I used to be in army intelligence before I became part of what we’re now calling the new republic. I have a skill set that allows me to cut through the noise and find the answers I’m looking for, if you get my meaning. It’s what I’m good at.” He smiled again. “I think it was fairly obvious when I was in command that I wasn’t very good at that.”
Maggie didn’t know how to respond to that, so she simply stared at him silently.
“In any case,” he continued, “I wanted you to know that for two reasons: first, so you know you can trust me with any sensitive information. And second, so you know I’m not just some army brass shmuck who’s trying to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“I never would have thought that,” she said quickly. “I have a lot of respect for you, Colonel.”
“It’s John. And thank you, I appreciate that very much. I want you to keep that in mind when you consider what I’m about to tell you. I assume you know about the disappearance of Dylan Nguyen and Lt. Miles Purcell?”
“I do,” she said, frowning. “But to be honest, I’m surprised that you know about them.”
“Nguyen was a civilian on an army team trying to recover data about the cyber attack that struck right before the Eko virus. Purcell was his supervisor, even though he didn’t know much about computers.”
“I guess it hadn’t occurred to me that Purcell reported to you,” she said.” I had actually started looking into their disappearances before Lisa Blume was killed. And Eric Peterson’s widow, as well, though I’
m pretty sure that was a suicide.”
He nodded. “I agree. I should have known you’d be ahead of me. You’ve got a sharp mind and a keen instinct for this work, Maggie, even if you don’t have much experience.”
Her breathing quickened. What was he implying? Holding her tongue had served her well so far, so she continued with it.
“Which is why I hope you’ll hear me out,” he said. “I assume you’ve accepted that Farries is your killer?”
“I don’t want to, but I’m not seeing much in the way of alternatives. I’ll reserve judgment until we bring him in.”
“Of course. But I’d like you to consider the possibility that Farries may also have been behind Nguyen and Purcell as well.”
She frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Doesn’t it? Neither of us knows exactly when they disappeared, just that people haven’t seen them around for a while.”
“I have people who say they both dropped off the map sometime in October. Around the same time.”
“There you go.”
“Except that you’re forgetting motive. Why on Earth would Farries kill two members of a geek squad?”
Smith was silent for several moments. “Look,” he said, “I don’t want to go down a rabbit hole, but there’s something we need to consider. According to accepted intelligence, Eric Peterson was the one who piloted the drone that shot down Air Force One, before he shot and killed Marcus Chase and was then shot and killed himself by Jax Booth.”
She nodded. “I’ve heard. Peterson was an agent for China. A mole inside Cheyenne Mountain base. What are you getting at?”
“Bear with me here. Nguyen and Purcell were looking into the cyber weapon that was launched against the U.S. from China. I recently came across a report from Purcell that was buried in all the other paperwork from the early days after the collapse, saying that it was possible they had discovered some information that might lead to a fix for the effects of the weapon. I don’t have to tell you how much that would have improved our situation if it were true. The future of the republic might have been completely different.”
“Jesus,” she breathed. “I had no idea.”
“No one did, including the top brass and the president. Losing that report was a typical bureaucratic snafu, made worse by everything else that was going on at the time.”
“But what does that have to do with Farries?”
Smith motioned for them to sit down at one of the tables in the Fast Lanez lounge. The seats were upholstered in lemon-yellow vinyl, the table edges rimmed with brilliant chrome strapping. Garish leftovers of a world that no longer existed, in a place where everything had gone dark.
“I kept asking myself: how did Peterson have time and access to pilot the drone? Within minutes of the attack being carried out, he had tracked down and kidnapped the SecDef. It seems awfully convenient.”
“You’re saying he had a partner?”
Smith shrugged. “It would make sense. Someone who had experience with drones, who could carry out the remote attack while leaving Peterson plenty of time to track down and take out Chase.”
Maggie’s mind was reeling. This would be a lot for even a trained cop to take in, let alone someone pretending to be one.
Smith lowered his voice again, as if they weren’t the only people in the building. “Think about it: if there was a second agent inside the mountain, and they found out that someone was close to fixing the fallout of the cyber weapon, wouldn’t that agent act to stop it from happening?”
“All right, I’ll give you that,” she said. “But Farries? I have a hard enough time believing he killed Lisa, let alone that he was an operative for the Chinese government. You’re really reaching, John.”
He surprised her by grinning. “If you and I had been talking like this six months ago, and I’d told you that a Chinese cyber weapon was going to wipe out all electronics, and then a North Korean super virus was going to wipe out most of humanity, you would have laughed at me. In hindsight, what I’m proposing now is a hell of a lot easier to believe, don’t you think?”
Maggie ran her gloved hands over her face, pressing hard against her eyes. This was all too much. She longed to go back in time ten minutes, before this godforsaken conversation had ever started, before she knew that Ross was dead and that Smith had her under his thumb, before she was bombarded with information that was just so crazy it might be true.
“All right,” she said. “I’m not going to say you’re out to lunch—not yet, anyway. But none of this is worth talking about until we have Farries in custody. Then we can question him and figure out what’s real and what’s not.”
He nodded. “Agreed. But now that you bring it up, I’m going to make another suggestion: let me interrogate him when we do bring him in.”
“What?” Her eyes were wide. “Why?”
He leaned in and lowered his voice yet again, almost to a conspirator’s whisper.
“Maggie, I want you to trust me, so I have to be honest here: you have great instincts for this kind of thing, but I don’t believe you have the experience necessary for the job.” He locked eyes with her again. “I’d rather not spell it out if I don’t have to.”
She wouldn’t have thought herself capable of feeling any worse, but her stomach dropped just the same. He knew. She didn’t know how he knew, but he did. And he had her over a barrel.
“I—” she said, then stopped. “I’m not… you don’t have to spell it out.”
His smile actually seemed sincere. “Good, because that’s the last thing I want to do, believe me. I’ve seen what happens to people when they lose their sense of purpose. Hell, we both saw it with the downtown people, even some of the folks in New Haven. They drink their lives away and slowly go insane. They shoot their housemates and then themselves.”
God, could he make it any worse? “What is it you want from me?”
“I just want to help. There’s a killer on the loose and I want him stopped. And I want to get to the bottom of this. It’s long past time that we figured out what’s really going on around here.”
She let out a shaky sigh and nodded. “On that, we agree.”
He held out a hand and she shook it, wondering if she had just made a deal with devil.
19
The midday sun was diamond hard in a clear blue sky as the Sno-Cat clanked its way along Highway 25 for the second time in as many weeks. Jax thought about the last time it was out, in the middle of what had to have been the worst blizzard in modern memory, and thanked heaven for small favors. Finding this group would be a piece of cake by comparison.
“Do you see what I see, Captain?” Sgt. Lee said from the driver’s seat, as if reading his mind.
“I do.” He grinned. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually felt like doing that. “And they see us.”
About two hundred yards north was a group of four people heading toward them in the track plowed by the Sno-Cat during its last rescue. They were jumping and waving, which Jax took as a good sign, since the last group they’d rescued barely had the strength to walk when they were found.
“Full speed ahead, Sergeant. The population of the new republic is about to go up yet again.”
“How long have you been on the road?” Jax asked once the newcomers were settled into their seats with a cup of hot soup from his Thermos. He’d given them the lowdown on what to expect once they arrived in Colorado Springs. The relief in their faces had been worth the trip on its own.
“God, it feels like a year,” said Peg, an Asian woman who looked to be in her twenties.
“Sixteen days when you count the two days in Denver,” said an older man with a knitted cap pulled down low on his bald head and a serious look. He’d introduced himself as Wayne Mercer.
The other two, Rick and Dion by name, looked about Peg’s age. Both had the scraggly beards of young guys to whom shaving is still a novelty. They slurped their soup without speaking.
“So you’re n
ot from Denver originally?” Jax asked.
“Boulder,” said Wayne. “I’d been preparing for something like this for a while. I had weapons and ammo, food and water. A small group of us got to know each other back in September; we hid out in my basement, avoiding the worst of the chaos. It lasted… God, it lasted so much longer than we ever thought it could.”
Peg put a hand on top of his. “Wayne believed that the military would eventually come for us, but it seemed like every time we put our heads out, there was something worse going on. So we waited. And waited. Finally, when the snow flew, we decided it was now or never.”
“We made it to Denver on the snowmobiles,” said Wayne. “But we couldn’t find any gas. Not that we looked too far—things are ugly there. We ditched the snowmobiles and started hunting for supplies. Then we heard the gunfire and hid out in a gas station back room until it stopped. When we finally worked up the guts to go back, the snowmobiles had been shot to hell. We waited a couple days to make sure no one was coming back for us, then headed out in an old cube van we found, only to have it run out of juice around Castle Rock. Then we took off on foot. That was before sunrise.”
“Then we saw the wolves,” Peg said, shuddering. “They started circling us at a distance. Wayne finally fired at them when they got too close. I’d never even heard of wolves in Colorado, and suddenly we’re surrounded by them. And they were huge.”
“They started coming back in the early 2000s,” said Jax. “And we’ve noticed them, too. They were attracted down from the mountains by all the cattle that have been roaming free from the ranches around the city. Now they’re getting bolder and moving into the city; one of the things you don’t think about when all the machines stop working and garbage piles up is that you suddenly become overrun with rabbits and mice and rats, all of whom are on the menu for wolves.”
