Allegiance (23 page)

Outbreak - Day 15

Schriever AFB

Colorado Springs,
Colorado

Cade gave the door two
light raps, then waited a beat.
Nothing
. He knocked two more times,
putting a little more muscle behind them.
Still quiet
.

He expected to find his
family either at the mess or hunkered down here trying to keep cool, and he
hadn’t seen them when he popped in to the former.
Strange
, he thought. A
hundred degree day had a knack for driving people inside and keeping them
there. Still, he wasn’t worried—Brook could take care of herself and Raven.
She’d already proven that many times over. He just wanted to make sure when he
opened the door he wasn’t greeted with the business end of his wife’s M4.

So he knocked one more
time, waited a second longer, and then fished a hand into his cargo pocket. He
rooted amongst the truck keys and the gilded basketball.
Nothing
. As
he’d suspected, Brook had the only key to the hut.

Even though he was
pretty certain the person or persons responsible for infecting the civilians
and setting off the outbreak inside of Schriever had already fled, keeping the
door to the Grayson billet locked at all times was their new SOP—Standard
Operating Procedure.

He propped his rifle
against the jamb, shrugged off his combat pack and rifled through the side
pockets looking for his lock-gun—a highly effective lock-picking tool that
could easily defeat most standard tumbler locks. In fact, he realized that
since he had been running ops with the new Delta team, the soft spoken Maddox
had dealt with every secured door they had encountered. To say the deceased
operator had been a magician with a lock would be vastly understating the
truth.

Finally his fingers
brushed the plastic grip; somehow the thing had worked its way to the very
bottom of his ruck and was mixed in with the unpalatable discards from the
awful MREs that had kept him going at times. That the tool wasn’t immediately
accessible would have earned him an ass-chewing from his mentor, the late Mike
Desantos.

During the few seconds
it took him to gain entry into his own quarters, he made a mental note to
square away his ruck before setting course for Utah in the morning—and put the
lock-gun where he could get to it at a moment’s notice.
From here on out I need
to be on my A-game
, he thought to himself. Because tomorrow, there would be
no team of shooters backing him up.

After hustling the shiny
contraption through the open door, he found a bunk far away in the shadows and
hoisted it on top, pushing it back far as he could and then spreading a thin
sheet over the sharp angles.

He ventured back into
the bright afternoon to collect the rest of his gear, set everything in a pile
in the center of the dark room, and locked the door. Unbuttoning his ACUs on
the move, he made a beeline for the toilets.

He’d been holding this
one in for half an hour, and as he stood in front of the urinal with one arm
propped on the cool tile and blasted away at the fragrant little pill, he
detected subtle movement out of the corner of his eye. He dropped his Johnson
and drew the compact Glock from his shoulder holster, swept it to the right and
bracketed some kind of dog within the tritium sights.

“You gotta be kidding
me,” he said aloud as he holstered his weapon. “And how did you get in here,
pooch?” Though he was merely thinking aloud, the answer to his question hit him
at once—
the girls
.

He finished his business
at the urinal and put everything away in its proper place. Then he knelt in a
submissive posture and clucked his tongue. “You a girl or a boy, you hairy
rascal?”

Cade watched the dog
regard him for a tick, then the seemingly fearless shepherd padded forward and
sniffed at his upturned palm. While the dog was busy vetting him, he gently
grasped its collar and glanced at the quarter-sized tag hanging there. “Your
name is
Max
. That’s what it says on your dog tag,” he said in a
sing-song voice. “Look... I’ve still got mine.” He tapped at his army issue dog
tags through the fabric of his sweat-stained tee shirt. The dog went prone,
eyes intently focused on him—one blue and one brown. The brindle shepherd
received a thorough scratching behind the ears. “Where did the girls find you?”

Cade shrugged out of his
shoulder holster and peeled away the damp, rank-smelling tee shirt and chucked
it into one of the many sinks lining one wall of what used to be a communal
lavatory.

“You must think I’m
crazy talking to you like we’re long lost buddies.” In the event the girls had
snuck in and happened to be watching, he looked over his shoulder before
continuing the one-sided conversation. “I’ve been outnumbered two to one for
the last twelve years. So I welcome you with open arms... you can be my
wingman
.”

Max sprang to all fours,
turned a circle and let out a single muted yap.

“OK—let’s get out of the
bathroom. Or else someone’s going to think we’re light in the loafers,” Cade
said as a wave of fatigue suddenly welled up within him. A full day’s worth of
adrenaline highs and the inevitable valleys on the back side of those peaks was
finally catching up. He made his way to a bunk and plopped down with his boots
still laced, feet planted firmly on the floor, and the rest of his torso
stretched across the thin mattress—and that was exactly how Brook and Raven
found him when they came back from visiting with Wilson, Sasha, and Taryn.

Outbreak - Day 15

Winters’s Compound

Eden, Utah

The blindfold peeled off
with a dull pop, and like something alive, the man’s greasy dreadlocks splayed
out over his shoulders. Duncan chucked the burlap strip to the floor, and
placed himself between the prisoner and the single hundred-watt bulb they had
strung up for this occasion. He figured he’d look all the more imposing if they
played it that way.

Twirling his waxed
handlebar moustache, Logan had struck a somewhat sympathetic pose, arms at his
side and slouched in the folding metal chair. He had one leg propped across the
other and his black bowler hat concealed his eyes.

This room would do
, Duncan thought to himself. It wasn’t a jail
cell or an interrogation room, but neither was it the Embassy Suites. Row upon
row of food stuffs jammed the room from the plywood-covered floor to its low
metal ceiling. Shiny cans tilted sideways, their contents and a date scribbled
in the hand of either Logan or Lev, lined one wall. A wall of rice and pinto
beans stored in plastic five-gallon buckets loomed behind the seated prisoner.
The latter not so good in an underground bunker, Duncan mused. Aside from the
booze-tinged sweat oozing from the young man’s pores, the room had a certain
unique odor about it. A mild metallic nose with an underlying dampness. The
more he thought about it, the more the smell reminded him of an unfinished
basement.

Duncan noted the man’s
wild eyes darting about the room. He allowed him a moment to stew in his
situation and then removed the gag. “What’s your name?” he demanded. Then he
stepped closer, hovered over the young man, invading his personal space.

“Since when is it
illegal to watch somebody?”

Duncan reared back and
threw the yellow notepad. It hit the watcher squarely in the chest and ended up
on the floor near his scuffed boots.

“Take it easy on the
guy,” Logan said. He got up from his chair, pushed the bowler to its proper
place, and glared at his older brother.

“Says the peacenik in
the family,” Duncan said, emitting a sad-sounding chuckle.

Logan took one step
closer. “He’s all of what...
seventeen
? You don’t need to
hurt
him.”

“
Eighteen
... and
my name’s Chance,” the prisoner said, twisting his head in Logan’s direction.

“Old enough to go to
war. Old enough to vote... but not old enough to drink. Why do you smell like a
brewery, kid? Is that all you’re doing now that the end of the world is upon
us?” Duncan asked.

“What the hell does that
have to do with anything?” Logan spat. “Give him a break... you’ve been out
there. You’ve seen how hellish it is.”

“Quit sticking up for
the kid!” Duncan bellowed. He regained his composure, and in his syrupy
southern drawl addressed the kid. “Now, Chance.” He paused for effect. “I’m
only going to give you one
chance
to tell me the truth. Then I’m going
to ask Mister
Gives a Shit
here to leave us alone so we can get better
acquainted.”

Chance swallowed hard.
His eyes flicked to Logan looking for any sort of help. Received none. Logan
had the bowler hat once again pulled down low, keeping the stark white light of
the single exposed bulb at bay.

Duncan cracked his
knuckles. Sat on his haunches so that he was seeing eye to eye with Chance.
“I’m going to make this easy for you to remember. I have three questions that
start with a W. Why were you watching us? Where are you staying when you’re not
taking notes about our comings and goings? Who else is there with you when you
aren’t watching us? I may have follow up questions if I don’t like your answers.”

“I’ll talk to
him
,”
Chance said. He motioned with his eyes, rolling them in Logan’s direction.

“You’ll tell
him
everything?” asked Duncan.

“You’ll
really
let me go?” the kid asked tentatively.

“I want to
kill
you,” Duncan said matter-of-factly. “You were watching us. Taking notes for
some reason. Furthermore... you had a gosh dang AK-47—”

Logan cut in. “I will
escort you to your ride personally.” He held the young man’s car keys aloft.
“But only if you
promise
you won’t come back.”

Duncan snorted. Shook his
head and stared at the floor. “You’re making a big mistake,” he murmured. “But
it’s your call.”

“Yes it is. And it’s a
fair trade by my estimation,” Logan added. Then he revealed his eyes. Looked
squarely at Chance. “You have my
word
... I’ll let you go. How’d you get
here?”

“
He
has to
leave,” said Chance. “Then can you cut me loose?”

Duncan spoke up. “Yes to
one. No to two.” He walked past Logan, and on his way out the door added a
parting shot, “If you don’t tell him
everything
... and I mean every little
detail. Then I will be back. Before I leave I have to ask you one more thing…”

Chance wormed around and
looked towards Duncan. “What?”

“You seen the movie Pulp
Fiction?” asked Duncan.

“Who hasn’t?” the kid
quipped.

“Good. Then you remember
what Marsellus Wallace said to the hillbilly rapist.”

It was silent inside the
storeroom.

“Let me refresh your
memory. Marsellus had just suffered some unspeakable shit at the hands of the
hillbilly
and
the gimp. So Butch saves Marsellus’s ass and Marsellus
says... I’m paraphrasing now, so bear with me... he says to the hillbilly
rapist, ‘
I’m gonna have one of my friends get medieval on your ass
.’ You
following, Chance?”

“I’m the
hillbilly
,”
Chance said resignedly.

“Bingo. I’ll be back if
you don’t answer every one of this man’s questions to the best of your
ability.” Judging by the beaded sweat on the kid’s lip and brow, and the size
his eyes had gone, Duncan didn’t need to repeat the medieval line. He rose to
his full height and flashed a covert wink at his baby brother, stepped over the
raised threshold and clanged the door shut behind him.

***

Ten
minutes later

Logan emerged from the
store room, shut the door and leaned backwards, pressing his hundred and fifty
pound frame against it. After a beat, a broad smile formed on his face.

Duncan pushed off of the
wall that had been supporting his weight. Eyebrows inching up, he gave his
brother a look that said, ‘
spill yer guts
.’

Holding up an imaginary
statue, Logan began to recite a made up acceptance speech. “I’d like to thank
the Motion Picture Academy first and foremost—” A chorus of raucous laughter
from the brothers filled the confined space.

“He told you
everything
?”
Duncan asked.

“
Everything
he
wanted us to think,” Logan answered under his breath.

“You think anything he
said was truthful?”

The low murmur of
someone talking in one of the other subterranean rooms floated past them. Logan
crossed his arms, and swiveled his head back and forth. “No way. First off... I
don’t think it’s just him and a few relatives camping thirty miles east of here
like he says. And secondly, I don’t buy his bullshit story that he didn’t know
anything about the cut barbed wire, the two infected dudes and the rotters that
followed them in. He was all jittery and diverted his eyes more than a few
times. He was
lying
,” Logan said confidently.

“Doesn’t matter, when
you go back in there take this with you and ask him to sign it. Furthers the
illusion... know what I mean?”

Logan studied the single
sheet of paper. “Effin peace treaty. Good call. Makes it look all o-fish-ul.
So, Bad Cop... you really are going to let him go?”

“Keep him locked up
until about an hour before nightfall and then blindfold him. Drive around the
airfield for about five minutes. Doesn’t matter which way you turn or how many
times. Just confuse the kid. Make him think the compound is farther in than it
really is,” Duncan said, flashing a shit-eating grin at Logan. “It’s what I did
when I brought him in here. Shoulda seen the look on Lev’s face when I kept
doing laps and figure eights. Then after you get his head spinning, you take
him to his vehicle.” Duncan handed over the dented and scratched AK-47.

“Where the hell is his
vehicle?

“Black Toyota about a
quarter mile north of the clearing. The ladies saw a fella come looking for the
boy. They tried to get to him but he knew how to move quiet and fast.”

Logan flashed him a
bewildered look. “And then what?”

“Then you make a show of
it... tell him we won’t be as forgiving if he comes back around. Then give him
back his rifle.”

After checking the
magazine and seeing his reflection staring back at him in the shiny brass
casings, Logan shook his head doggedly. “I can’t do it. Not this way. What’s
going to keep the
shitbird
from putting a couple of rounds into my back
when I’m not looking?”

“Go with Lev or Gus.
Give the kid the rifle after you reach his vehicle.”

“
You sure
?”

“
Positive
. When
you were in there playing Good Cop I ruined the firing pin.” Duncan smiled,
removed his aviator glasses and buffed each lens with a deliberate circular
motion. Fogged them with his breath and repeated the process.

“You’re a wily bastard,
Dunc. Playing him like that. And then that Ving Rhames shtick— ‘
medieval on
yo ass
’—effin priceless, brother.”

“Sometimes a flash of
brilliance shines through all of my bullshit,” Duncan drawled.

“Don’t sell yourself
short, bro. You’ve always been the brains of the family. After Dad, of course.
You know, if there’s one thing I’m grateful for it’s that Mom and Dad didn’t
have to see this shit happen to the world.”

“Dad woulda been OK,”
Duncan said. “Mom— she wouldn’t have gotten on very well, what with only a
rolling pin and her acid tongue against the dead.” He clapped his brother on
the shoulder. “I promise you. This is going to work out just fine. Best case
scenario is ol’ Chance stays away. Better case, he brings his
family
back and we’re ready for them. Take care of them once and for all.” He embraced
Logan in one of his trademark bear hugs. Whispered in his ear. “I kinda hope
they do bring it... cause there’s a couple more tricks up this old dog’s
sleeve.”

He fleshed out the rest
of the plan for Logan, and when he had finished, Good Cop reentered the
storeroom to cross the T’s and dot the I’s.

Whistling a few notes of
Skynyrd’s Free Bird, Duncan walked down the connecting corridor. “Phillip,” he
bellowed. “I’ve got a job for you.”