“Keep that gun of yours out of arm’s reach, huh?” Tom whispered to the guard.
Chastened, the trooper nodded, and Tom rounded back on the scene.
“Edward,” Wilhelm said. “The Brotherhood is Ortega’s scapegoat. Your men fighting back only pours fuel on the fire. We are on the brink of losing everything we have gained here. I know how hard you have worked too, since you arrived. Help us.”
Burroughs returned without any show of the anger so recently surging through him. Rather, his eyes looked sad, more ursine than ever, and he took in both of them with one sweeping motion.
“I was just trying to show people we aren’t living in a fairytale anymore,” he said.
Tom knew when Burroughs said “people” he meant “men,” but now wasn’t the time for a debate about gender ethics. Competing emotions tracked across Burroughs’ face and he wiped at it as if that was some kind of help, exhaustion writ through all of it after several days in the hole.
“We think Ortega has a loyal following within the Department of Safety,” Wilhelm said.
“They call themselves the Lefthanders,” Tom added.
“And we think the faction’s loyal to . . . Colonel Rhymes.”
“That old coot?” Burroughs snarled. “I thought Ortega couldn’t stand him? Thought at least we had that in common.”
“I am asking a lot of you,” Wilhelm ploughed on. “Forgiveness. Trust, after we willingly let Ortega mistreat you.”
Burroughs stared at him. Wilhelm paused, then pressed on.
“We need you to put your men on the street,” he said. “With ours.”
“They’ve just been firing shots at each other?”
Wilhelm nodded, somehow sagely. Burroughs blew out his cheeks and it was like the animosity left him – traded for bewilderment instead. He looked back at the Council man as if desperate for some kind of clearer meaning.
“Ortega slurred all of you,” Wilhelm said. “You can choose now . . . choose to show men are a force for good. To protect.”
“The weak?” Burroughs said.
“Hasn’t that always been the way?” Wilhelm answered. “We wouldn’t have had civilization without it . . . and the civilization we are rebuilding now, it won’t survive now without good men protecting the weak.”
Wilhelm let that sit with him, shooting a look at the two troopers as if they were to blame.
“Get Mr Burroughs his footwear, and something to eat,” he said. “We are getting him out of here.”
The Councilor strode from the cool room and Tom found himself several steps behind, struggling with his own befuddlement until he stopped and Wilhelm turned back to him, black face glinting with an undeserved nobility Tom registered with seething distaste.
“This is a dangerous alliance, Tom,” he almost whispered. “We’ll have to watch our backs.”
Then Wilhelm walked away properly, leaving Tom wondering at what point he became part of the Councilor’s “we”.
*
GREERSON HAILED THEM from where he’d waited at the bottom of the stairs to the apartment’s main lobby. His rifle hung from one shoulder as he stood spooning noodles out of a ceramic bowl, setting the thing aside with a sense of synchronicity as Tom and Wilhelm’s arrival coincided with the end of his meal.
“Finally,” he said. “We need to talk.”
“Food smells good,” Tom said.
“There’s time to eat later,” the new Safety Chief said. “We have to deal with Ortega.”
“Yes,” Wilhelm said. “The Councilors are still upstairs?”
Tom looked askance to Wilhelm and then tried reining in his incredulity.
“Dude,” he said to Greerson – and Wilhelm too if he was really listening. “I’m beat. The Councilor and I only just came back, and you know better than anyone else what went on out there. I need to eat. My children are here. I want to check in with them.”
“I think the Chief’s right, Tom,” Wilhelm said and pulled his serious face, adding one finger against his lips for added thoughtful effect.
“Fuck off, Ernie.”
“Vanicek,” Greerson said. “Councilor Ben-Gurion’s missing. The patrol we sent out for him lost a trooper getting back. Every nutter’s coming out of the woodwork. It’s not just Ortega’s people. Any Citizen with an ax to grind’s breaking Curfew.”
“Denny’s right,” Wilhelm said again, infuriatingly. “We have to strike while the iron’s hot.”
“Strike?”
“Well. . . .” Wilhelm said. “We have to do something.”
“Can you give me a few more details about this mysterious ‘something’?”
The Councilor couldn’t meet Tom’s eye, finding refuge with Greerson instead.
“I was hoping you and our Safety Chief could advise.”
“Stop calling me the Chief,” Greerson snapped. “It just makes me think of that prick Ortega.”
“You have to have some kind of plan,” Tom said. “This isn’t my fight.”
“Tom,” Wilhelm said and motioned invitingly to the stairs. “We trusted the Colonel and Chief Ortega for our entire security. They were our military backbone. We need your input.”
“Wilhelm, I’m no soldier.”
“Maybe,” the Councilor said and eyed him shrewdly. “In the years since, though, that’s changed, hasn’t it?”
Tom found himself strangely uncomfortable, and switching his gaze to Denny Greerson nodding at the sagacity of Wilhelm’s words didn’t help.
*
THE MEETING ROOM was more crowded now, more troopers than seemed necessary clustered gossiping in the far corner, several women and an elderly man serving food, Wilhelm’s mercenary guard Amsterdam beside Councilor Deschain and the first to notice Tom, Wilhelm and Greerson as they re-entered the room.
Lowenstein went straight to Wilhelm while the others swapped nervous looks.
Tom grunted to himself, a reprieve in the lack of attention. He took one of the plates of rice chili laid on the conference table and forked it into his mouth like refueling a car.
“We’ve got no idea what we’re dealing with here,” Carlotta said and sounded shrill. “What are we going to do about Ortega? I think we should get Earle up here right now and announce plans for an election. Let people power sort it out.”
There was more awkward quiet in the room.
Tom was still irked at his laptop conspiracy going public so quickly – not that it mattered much anymore. He paused shoveling food into his mouth to glare daggers at Wilhelm’s wife.
Lowenstein clutched the edge of the table like she might go Hulk any minute.
“Carlotta,” she growled. “We’re all in this together.”
“Fuck that,” the younger woman said and tittered again. “I’m with Dr Hamilton. I quit too. I thought we were helping people. I never expected them to turn on us – least of them our own people, for God’s sake.”
Now it was Wilhelm’s turn to play disappointed parent.
“Baby,” he said. “I never figured you for a quitter. After all we have been through?”
“Everyone’s got a limit,” she replied. “I want us both out, Ernie. Life’s too short for this shit.”
As if not to have to defend her honor any further, the newly ex-Councilor waved her apologies and walked from the room fighting back more tears.
It was as if no one knew where to look. Tom sighed, dejected and dispirited, and resumed eating the modest meal, immediately helping himself to another unattended plate after scanning to make sure no one else wanted it. He closed his eyes, focusing on the brilliance of the tomato in the sauce, desperately fighting a massive yawn and nonetheless wishing for his bed – and more pain meds.
“Ortega’s probably snuggled up in that weed farm of his right now,” Greerson said.
Tom glanced around the room – Greerson, Wilhelm and Lowenstein, no sign of Hamilton, and now Carlotta Deschain gone. Amsterdam stood muttering with the other troopers, but one whiff of the new cautious
silence and the hired muscle split. Tom stopped Amsterdam with a gentle hand as the troopers sought an exit.
“Do you have any painkillers?”
“I’ll see what I can find,” Amsterdam said and gave a terse nod.
Tom nodded as well, relieved even at the thought of medication to dull his ongoing torture. He finished chewing and looked back to Greerson.
“‘Weed farm’?”
It was Wilhelm who nodded.
“Ortega has a factory unit for him and his people,” he said. “The marijuana is his . . . sideline.”
“Ortega has ‘people’ and you already knew that?”
“Knew?” Wilhelm snapped back. “Knew what? I have a household, too –”
“Ortega’s got more than a household,” Greerson said and then directed himself at Tom. “The Chief has a grow house and a few people live with him on site. Security. Alvarez was one of them.”
“How many people are we talking about?”
“Maybe a half-dozen?”
Tom was dissatisfied with the answer because it didn’t tell him if that was a good or bad number of potential foes. He thought instead about the after-Curfew scenes Greerson had barely mapped out, chaos unfolding as disgruntled Citizens became creatures of the night, in turn triggering thoughts about the man murdered and dumped in his own apartment building not so long ago – and all that while the Curfew was in full effect.
Chaos threatened.
“If there’s a criminal element running around after Curfew, you have another big problem to deal with,” Tom said.
He glanced at the others in case the obvious occurred to them too, though he wasn’t surprised it hadn’t.
“People are gonna die,” he said. “And that means Furies.”
*
“JESUS H. CHRIST,” Denny Greerson muttered and scratched at his matted hair the color of an old blonde wig left out in the rain.
“No one’s forgotten the risk the Furies pose, Tom,” Wilhelm probably lied. “This is just another reason why we have to take action tonight.”
Lowenstein concurred, despite being clueless. She crossed her arms to console herself.
“So?” she asked. “What are we suggesting?”
“It has to be a decision of the Council,” Wilhelm said. “Ortega and the Colonel do not represent a legitimate alternative government.”
Tom had to exhale pretty deeply to rid himself of his utter loathing at listening to the Councilors speak, but it was Greerson who cut through their bullshit.
“You guys can talk until the goddamned sun comes up,” he snapped. “We can’t spare another night. We don’t know if we have another night.”
Greerson looked expectantly at Tom, seemingly unaware of the grave offense he’d just dealt pretty much everyone else in the room. Beside him, Wilhelm pulled up his big boy pants and issued a noisy out-take of pent-up breath.
“We’re trying to avoid a war, remember?” Lowenstein said. “Not start one.”
“It is a little late for that,” Wilhelm said.
Tom dropped his empty bowl onto the table, careless of the noise it made or whether it broke. He had more misgivings than he could count on both hands – and a foreign-to-him guilt he refused to acknowledge roiling beneath it all.
How many times had he nearly died in the past month?
Tom had everyone’s attention, so he said the only thing that made any sense.
“We need to find Ortega.”
*
TOM WAS STILL reeling from the Council discussion which concluded with their agreement that he and Greerson should venture alone to Ortega’s headquarters and infiltrate their operation to gather more intelligence – and stunned by it most of all because his was the most strident voice demanding it.
At the end of the debate, Wilhelm patted him on the shoulder, pleased, and only making Tom feel played once again as the Councilor slipped comfortably back into his safe-for-now civilian role and promised Tom he’d check in on Lucas and Lilianna in their father’s stead.
The meeting room emptied pretty quickly after that. Soon it was just Tom and Greerson and a riot of mixed emotions straining the air between them.
Tom let out a mighty sigh and lowered into a tired squat, cupping his face with his hands.
“This is bullshit,” he said in a muffled voice.
“What’s that line?” Greerson asked the air. “‘Methinks the lady doth protest too much’?”
“That’s almost right,” Tom said. “The line, anyway.”
He stood again and felt the pain burning raw down his entire right-hand side.
“What about you?” he asked. “No doubts? No last-minute concerns?”
“About Ortega?”
“Yeah.”
“No,” Greerson replied, and did it with such a guilty look Tom instantly knew whatever came next wasn’t going to be good.
“What is it?”
“It’s . . . something.”
“Go on,” Tom said.
“The night of the ammo raid,” Greerson answered at last and looked around as if the right words might be tacked up somewhere where he could read them.
“I wasn’t at my post when the raiders hit,” he said at last.
“Don’t tell me you were in on it –”
“No!” the other man snapped. “But . . . the . . . the way it happened, now I can see, maybe it showed Ortega’s hand . . . that he was behind it.”
“And what makes you say that?”
“I was working,” Greerson said. “But . . . there was this girl. She came around looking for me. That doesn’t happen a lot, you know? I think Ortega sent her.”
“A girl,” Tom said. “How young are we talking, here?”
Greerson dropped his eyes.
“She was a teenager, man,” he said. “She had boobs.”
“Jeez, Denny,” Tom said. “And I was just feeling really good about you.”
“Don’t judge me, Vanicek,” Greerson snarled. “You’ve got no idea the shit I’ve been through –”
“– that means it’s OK to fuck kids?”
“It was just a blowjob.”
Tom didn’t know what to do with that remark, so he chose nothing at all. The dragon of loathing further tightened its coils around his guts.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“Just after two a.m.,” the trooper said. “We’re gonna roust him from his bed?”
“There’s no way Ortega’s asleep,” Tom said. “If what you said’s true, the wolves are among the sheep tonight. He’d be too fucking excited to miss any of this.”
“Then how will we even know he’s there?”
“Easy,” Tom said. “I’m going to knock on his front door.”
*
GREERSON GAVE TOM a long hard look and then around the empty Council room, willing common sense to materialize.
“Tell me you’re not serious, Vanicek.”
Tom looked on the trooper a moment, the camaraderie he’d felt for the man evaporated under the stench of his confession.
“You can relax,” Tom said eventually. “I’m going alone.”
“Who are you, Vanicek?” Greerson asked with an equally mirthless laugh. “Citizen of the Year?”
“Tell me they don’t actually have that.”
“They talked about it,” Denny shrugged. “You know you don’t have to do this. I’m Chief of Safety now, Vanicek. I can take a twelve-strong brick of the best troopers we’ve got left, a couple of those mercenaries, too. We could hit Ortega’s place as hard as we can. Maybe nip this in the bud.”
“Lowenstein was right about one thing,” Tom said. “This needs to be quiet. You said as much yourself. If the Lefthanders sent hit squads after Councilors tonight, they’ll be making their move. That means they must have a headquarters . . . but I’m not convinced Ortega’s place is it.”
“He has to know you survived,” Greerson said. “You think he knows you know?”
“You mean, if I show up alive w
hen he wanted me dead?”
He met Greerson’s shifting gaze.
“That’s a risk I have to take.”
“I don’t get it,” Greerson said. “Why you . . . Tom?”
“Yeah,” Tom replied, and it was about the most honest he felt he could be. “This whole thing makes me want to pack my shit up and get my family the hell out of here and leave you guys to it. Jackal seems to have the right idea.”
“You could go live with the Confederates.”
“Tempting,” Tom agreed. “Unfortunately, my son and daughter have their own attachments to this place, and I’m not . . . sure . . . not sure I can . . . dictate. . . .”
“Oh man,” he said and finally sagged as the strength left him. “I don’t know what I know about what. Fuck.”
“You could opt out,” Greerson said. “But you won’t. You sure it’s not you who’s excited by all this chaos?”
“I was talking about Ortega.”
“Yeah,” Greerson again. “Takes one to know one.”
“Jeez, look at you,” Tom snapped back. “Full of quotable wisdom tonight, Greerson.”
Greerson only hung his head.
“If the City has to roll the dice tonight and put its faith in just one person, Vanicek, I’m glad it’s you.”
The troop commander awkwardly made himself force the eye contact and Tom’s jaw scrunched, discomfited by Greerson’s earlier admission, all muddled up as it was with their time together in dire straits back in the day already vanished into darkness. Tom’s guilt returned as fierce as ever, now he was walking alone into the inferno, but he smothered it and offered a handshake and no words and Greerson looked glad for it.
Random gunfire echoed off in the distance somewhere.
And Tom felt truly awful that he was about to betray all of them.
*
GREERSON LED THE way through the foyer doors, sporadic activity out on the open ground still despite the late hour. They started along the face of the big building back towards the main Enclave checkpoint.
After the Apocalypse Book 3 Resurgence: a zombie apocalypse political action thriller Page 19
