Angels of Vengeance: The Disappearance Novel 3 (41 page)

‘Whereabouts are your family based, Sergeant?’

‘They are with six families in strategic village built in old town called Richards. Is north of Houston. Many bandits in there. Radoslaw tells me it was almost as bad as New York for a while. Until the TDF kicked them out.’

‘And the TDF, your brother is happy with the security they provide?’

‘Oh yes, sir. For a bunch of ignorant bigots and rednecks who scrape all the skin of their knuckles as they walk along, the TDF are okay, in the judgment of Radoslaw. Of course, Radoslaw allows Vince the sheep to do stealthy farts behind couch, so perhaps his judgment is not to be relied upon.’

They were deep into the suburbs now, with no sign of any of the security checkpoints or roadblocks. Local traffic had appeared, a smattering of merchants were opening their businesses, and increasing numbers of people were walking the streets, some holding cups of coffee, others carrying bread and milk. It seemed to Caitlin that the Hummer could’ve been touring through a massive, open-air art installation. Life before the Disappearance.

She sat forward too now, her turn to quiz their Polish raconteur. ‘Do you mind if I ask, Sergeant – the other families in the settlement with your brother, do you know where they come from?’

‘Two from Poland, good people,’ replied Milosz. ‘Two more came from refugee camps in England, the working farms. And the others I am not sure. From Seattle, maybe.’

She said nothing in response, preferring to mull over that in private. The families who had arrived from England probably came off a farm not unlike hers and Bret’s. The other Poles would’ve been people like Milosz’s family, descended from hardy peasant stock and selected for the resettlement program because of their familiarity with agricultural work. They might have gained extra points towards selection if they had a relative, like Fryderyk Milosz, who had volunteered for federal service. The final two, from Seattle, she could not guess at.

‘One more question,’ she said. ‘These families down in Richards, are they all white?’

‘Oh yes,’ said the Ranger, without a trace of discomfort. ‘No nig-nogs or sand bandits in my brother’s village.’

*

It took them thirty minutes to cover the distance from Temple to the gates of Fort Hood. As Milosz moved onto other topics, Caitlin pondered Jackson Blackstone.

It made sense, she supposed, for Blackstone to have set himself up in the former headquarters of Fort Hood. The base itself was more easily secured than the civilian town centre, to its east. He had actively recruited among former members of the military for his own migration and resettlement program. The base’s infrastructure had survived well, and with thousands of disgruntled, footloose, former US military personnel to draw on, ramping the place back up to becoming a functioning facility would have been a lot easier than the task Musso faced over in Temple. An additional argument could be made that the Hood was simply too valuable to leave unattended, given that it was the largest existing US Army installation in North America. Roberto didn’t have power projection capability yet, but he would have everything he needed if he were able to get to Fort Hood first.

Still, it said a lot about Mad Jack that his first thought was to go for the guns. There was plenty of evidence, if you wanted to look, that Texas under Blackstone was a militarised society, and nowhere more so than here at the heart of his administration. TDF armed squads patrolled the streets in armoured Humvees, and although McCutcheon kept to his word and their convoy wasn’t stopped, Caitlin noted the telltale signs of semi-permanent checkpoints at least six times before reaching the base perimeter. She had no doubt that random roadblocks could be thrown up almost anywhere within the greater city of Killeen at a few minutes’ notice.

The residents she saw on the drive through Killeen into Fort Hood seemed to care not at all. They had none of the beaten-down, furtive air that usually hung around the subjects of a tyrant. Sparkling under the morning sun, still wet with yesterday’s rain, the new capital of the Texas Administrative Division presented as an advertisement for Arcadia. A white, heavily armed, middle-class Arcadia.

Milosz stuck close to McCutcheon’s Jeep, tailing him through the enormous military facility, a city within a city. The other vehicles in the small procession had peeled off earlier to seek out some basic supplies, fresh fruit being one item much needed back in Temple. McCutcheon had mentioned that the Post Exchange had a good supply, but he’d never said where it came from. Caitlin was hoping they might score some oranges or tangerines.

Like the air force bases her father had served at, a lot of Fort Hood could have passed for any patch of American suburbia, with a smattering of warehouses and industrial centres dropped into the mix. Brick barracks that looked more like college dorms were faced by large multi-bay garages where TDF and civilians went about the task of salvaging and maintaining the massive fleet of military hardware. A cluster of soldiers took a break at one motor pool, gathering around a light-tan food truck, purchasing sandwiches, sodas and other products from the fried, fat, salt, grease and sugar food groups.

Any thoughts that the Hood was simply an office park in uniform were dispelled, however, by the sight of an Abrams tank at an intersection close to the 1st Cavalry Division Museum, on Headquarters Avenue. The modern tank stood in stark contrast to the collection of mostly olive, drab vehicles from the US Army’s past. The crew waved at McCutcheon, receiving a hand wave in return.

‘The tanks are a bit excessive, aren’t they?’ Caitlin asked.

‘Probably there for your benefit,’ Musso said. ‘This checkpoint is normally manned with Hummers. It’s just Mad Jack putting on the ritz.’

The III Corps Headquarters came into view across a browned-out, wide-open parade field. Caitlin half expected to see troops marching back and forth, but apparently they had better things to do. A single soldier made his or her way across the field, destination unknown. Headquarters itself could well have been any building in any industrial park throughout North America, although the silver-grey structure was certainly distinctive enough, with its three-wing design. A banner hanging across the façade under the III Corps name proclaimed the following:
Welcome to Fort Hood. Provisional Capital of the State of Texas
.

They pulled up behind McCutcheon as he swung down from the Jeep, a pair of Ray-Bans in place to protect his bloodshot eyes from the glare of the morning sun.

‘Sergeant,’ he said, addressing Milosz, ‘we’ll probably be a couple of hours. If you and the private here are feeling peckish, you can get yourselves fixed up on base, or if you’d be more comfortable in town – and as long as your boss is fine with that, of course – I can recommend the breakfast burger at Greybeard’s, back in Willow Springs. That was the last little shopping village we rolled through before hitting the base. But if General Musso wants you to stay close, there’s also the Burger King down the road, although it doesn’t quite serve the old-fashioned Whopper we all remember and love.’

‘Is not to be worrying,’ replied Milosz. ‘I have seagull’s breakfast today. A drink of water and a look around.’

‘Go get yourself a coffee and a proper feed,’ Musso said, dismissing his escort after checking that both men had cell phone coverage.

Caitlin wore the uniform of the day – a winter-weight battle dress outfit designed for the forests of Cold War Europe. It was infused with enough starch that she imagined it could deflect bullets and knife strikes at the right angle. In many respects, Echelon’s undercover operative blended in with the Texas Defense Force personnel, who retained the same BDUs as the United States armed forces. Only the blue embroidery of her name tag and collar rank marked her as an outsider. She would’ve preferred to have worn the lighter, summer-weight BDUs she sometimes donned for field work, but they were too ripped and faded for use here. There would be no explaining how Colonel Murdoch had got them so scruffy-looking, sitting behind a desk in the UK.

Musso seemed to have deliberately dressed down, opting for a pair of hard-wearing boots, jeans, an old polo shirt and a jacket that looked like an insulated rain slicker. She wondered if he was drawing from James Kipper’s style guide. Sending his own message.

‘All righty then,’ declared McCutcheon, clapping his hands together as though hangovers weren’t something he had to worry about. ‘Let’s go see the big bad wolf.’

Low clouds, heavy with the threat of freezing rain turned the wasteland between Temple and Killeen darker than one of the lowest, most benighted levels of Hades. But that suited Sofia Pieraro’s purposes just fine. She was used to moving through the night quietly, unseen. The unpleasant conditions would also keep Blackstone’s troopers inside their guard houses, nursing cups of cocoa, possibly fortified with a shot or two of something stronger. Or they would gather around oil drums and small bonfires, stamping their feet against the cold, their night vision wrecked by the flames. More than once, on the long trek from Texas to KC, they had encountered bandits who made the same mistakes again and again. Some of them had died for it. Some of them at Sofia’s own hand. For now, however, she glided on.

All of the local radio stations, which she had monitored so diligently, trumpeted the recent lifting of roadblocks between the state and federal settlements as a reassuring sign of improved relations between the Kipper and Blackstone administrations. Sofia hoped not. She would hate to think that what little faith her father had invested in the President had been completely misplaced. But for her, right now, the loosening of security was a godsend. The road ahead of her began to climb up a gentle hill, and she stood on the pedals of the salvaged mountain bike to bring more of her strength to bear. The
shoooosh
of the bicycle’s tyres, and her own steady breathing were the only sounds she could hear beyond the call of an occasional night bird.

She strained in the dark to pick up anything that might warn her of danger nearby. Voices. Vehicle noises. The clink of bottles or cutlery. Anything that might indicate the presence nearby of TDF troopers, or indeed of anybody who might attempt to interfere with her plans.

But there was nothing. Not this far out from Killeen and Fort Hood. She calculated that she was well within the territory of the state government now. The fields on either side of the road were sown with winter crops, tended by indentured workers from the south. They would be locked up in their barracks now, and the attention of the guards focused in on them, not out towards the night.

Approaching the crest of the small hill she slowed, stopped, and dismounted. The figure of the young teenage girl, diminutive in the vastness of the empty land, remained so still and quiet for so long that she disappeared into the background. While Sofia waited, and allowed her senses to flow outwards, searching for any sign of threat, a long-eared jackrabbit hopped onto the road not ten yards away from her. With its filthy, matted fur it was difficult to see at first, even with her dark adapted eyes. But she caught the movement in her peripheral vision as it hopped across the tarmac. Were she on the trail, as she had been so long ago in another life, she might have shot the rabbit, or used a hunting bow if stealth was in order, to secure her meal for the day. But she had eaten well before leaving Temple, and had no need of sustenance.

What she needed was to pass through Blackstone’s defences and into the heart of his lair.

After a few minutes, satisfied that she remained alone on the road, she pushed off, soon cresting the gentle rise and coasting down the slope on the far side. The moderate elevation provided her with a view of Fort Hood for the first time. It seemed to blaze in the night like a fierce jewel, but she knew that to be an illusion. So used was she to travelling through the haunted ruins of America that even a few hundred houses lit up, and a few streetlights strung between them, were enough to create the impression of bountiful life and energy in the midst of an almost infinite wilderness.

She slipped down towards her destination, applying the handbrakes occasionally lest she accelerate to a speed at which she could not stop in a controlled fashion whenever she wanted. Sofia tried to relate the small, sparkling jewellery box of the city ahead of her to the maps she had memorised, and which she carried in her backpack. It was not easy. Not cloaked as she was in obsidian darkness. But again, she did not allow any sense of uncertainty to undermine her determination. She had already chosen the place in which she would lay up and wait for an opportunity to present itself. She had a rough, working idea of how she might use the city’s terrain to her advantage.

And if that idea proved to be ill-founded, she would adapt.

She had learned that from her father and her friends. To survive, to get what you needed, you had to adapt.

The road levelled out and she began to pedal again.

Polished floors, fresh paint on the walls and crystal-clear windows filled the Territorial Capital Building of Texas, formerly US Army III Corps Headquarters, with an unnaturally pure level of sunlight. Caitlin’s saluting arm got a workout on the approach to the building, greeting one Texas Defense Force soldier or officer after another. She essayed a casual salute, not sloppy, but not parade-ground perfect either. Good enough to do the job. Those she encountered seemed respectful. Then again, she was dressed in almost the exact same uniform as the TDF troopers. By the time the soldiers figured out she was a fed, it was too late to retract the salute or try on any disrespectful behaviour.

Once indoors, the saluting stopped, for which Caitlin was grateful. Like all formality, it grew to be a tiresome exercise.

‘Kate,’ Musso said. He pointed at her standard-issue BDU hat.

‘Oh, sorry. Thanks,’ she said, removing her cover.

Small, stupid mistakes like that would be her undoing. She killed soldiers, but she didn’t live around them, her husband being the sole exception, and Bret was long past caring to maintain a soldierly disposition. She stowed her hat before the overly hung-over Ty McCutcheon could notice the gaffe.

As soon as they were inside, she began taking sight pictures of the building’s layout. She had blueprints of the original design, including the security net, courtesy of Echelon field services, but there had been some structural and quite a bit of cosmetic work done since the Blackstone administration had moved in. She noted as best she could where the fundamental layout had been changed, and where the obvious surveillance devices – CCTV, infra-red traps, motion sensors and so on – were to be found. The building was secured, but no more than she would have expected of a civilian government facility, which is what the Territorial Capital Building was, in spite of the military trappings. The main defences seemed to be the two civilian guards at the concierge station.

As they travelled deeper into the HQ, she found civilians intermingled with the soldiers in about equal numbers, all wearing the same combination of business casual. It was wrapped a little more tightly than in Seattle. Many suits, but not all with ties. There were far fewer nose-rings and statement tee-shirts, but again the vibe was no different from the Federal Center in Temple. Musso fitted right in, at least in appearance. Caitlin was the odd one out as they arrived in a large, wood-panelled anteroom.

A civilian secretary, an African-American woman, stood up and smiled in greeting. ‘Good morning. The Governor will see you. Ma’am, may I take your coat?’

Caitlin processed her surroundings while taking off her field jacket. ‘Yes, ma’am, thank you.’ She tagged a slightly more sophisticated motion sensor in a corner of the ceiling, alarms tied into the windows and an inert magic eye guarding the entrance to Blackstone’s inner office. Again, nothing special.

After handing over their coats, they made their way in to a large, comfortable space, recently hacked out of the old building layout. It smelled of fresh paint and high-quality coffee, roasting on a sideboard next to a silver tray piled high with fresh bread rolls, smoked salmon, and pastries. There was no filing system to be seen. No computer on his desk. No signs of a wall safe.

‘Oh, the Governor has just stepped out,’ his secretary said. ‘I’m sure he’ll be back momentarily. Please make yourselves comfortable. Can I pour you some coffee?’

‘No, we’ll be fine, thank you,’ replied Musso.

The secretary left them.

An array of framed photographs, plaques, awards and certificates hung along a wall of what appeared to be highly polished cherry. In one image, a backdrop of burning oil wells bracketed a young group of officers standing on top of a blackened Iraqi tank. In another photo, a smiling Colonel Blackstone shook hands with Bill Clinton without a hint of the reserve evident in the officers around him. A third photo, a faded colour image, showed a pair of oldsters pinning a set of lieutenant’s bars on a very young man.

At the centre of the wall was a shadow box filled with a substantial collection of ribbons, qualification badges and division patches. Musso didn’t waste a second glance at the wall, perhaps because he had seen it all before. Caitlin took the opportunity to inspect the whole display more closely, as it afforded her an opportunity to walk around the office and scope it out.

Ty McCutcheon sidled up next to her and removed his sunglasses. ‘Impressive career. Enlisted at eighteen for Nam and ended up as a Ranger. You’ll have to forgive him for that.’

‘Not a fan of the 75th Regiment?’ she asked.

‘I was air force once upon a time, like you, Colonel,’ McCutcheon replied as if that explained it. ‘Drove me a Warthog. The General, though, he’s the real deal. Rose from the ranks the old-fashioned way. By killing those in need of it. Did his time and got a slot at Officer’s Candidate School. First in his family to go to college, you know.’

She did know, but said nothing.

‘Did well there,’ McCutcheon continued. ‘Third in class. Picked up his commission and then they sent him off to college.’ The Governor’s aide pointed up at the framed Bachelor of Arts in political science from NYU.

A toilet flushed at the far end of the office, followed by the sound of running water.

‘And the rest is a very boring story for the most part,’ a new voice called out. ‘Don’t let Ty blow too much smoke up your ass on my account. It feels nice, but the Surgeon General says it’s bad for you.’

Caitlin turned, expecting to find George C. Scott or Jack Nicholson growling lines of hand-crafted dialogue at her. The only other general she’d had recent experience of, aside from Musso, was a newly retired General Stephen F. Murphy, who had taken up a deputy director’s chair with Echelon in Vancouver. Murphy did indeed growl, never smiled, and looked like he would genuinely enjoy crushing testicles with his bare hands. This man, the bogie man who exercised the fears and anxieties of half the country, approached them from his private washroom, looking like he should have been tending a garden somewhere. A bit too grey, a bit too round, a bit too soft at the edges, with a rather grand Roman nose and a twinkle in his eyes. A friendly twinkle. The beard, less old navy than Santa Claus, only served to enhance the disarming warmth of his smile.

‘Jackson Blackstone,’ he announced, extending his hand. ‘Welcome to Fort Hood, Colonel Murdoch.’

Caitlin took his hand; a firm, somewhat calloused grip. ‘Thank you, Governor.’

‘My, that’s quite a grip you’ve got there, Colonel. You wouldn’t be an old chopper pilot, would you?’

‘No sir. Tennis.’

‘Ah, my wife is a fan. I’m afraid I’m not. Fishing is my personal obsession. One I don’t get to enjoy nearly as much I had planned to after hanging up my uniform.’

Blackstone spared a sideways glance for Tusk Musso, much the way a frustrated academic might look at a particularly dim student. ‘Musso,’ he said, ‘always a pleasure.’

The President’s unofficial ambassador nodded. ‘Blackstone.’

The Governor suddenly clapped his hands together, producing a sound like a rifle crack. ‘Does anyone have any interest in breakfast? I know it’s late but I haven’t eaten yet. Between my morning exercise and the blizzard of paperwork that follows me everywhere, I often don’t. But I saved myself a fine river trout. Caught yesterday, but not by me, I’m afraid to say. I’d been intending to save it for lunch. But it would make an excellent breakfast with some toast and avocado and a cup of fine Costa Rican robusta.’

Caitlin shook her head. ‘Negative, sir. We ate before we came on post.’

‘Colonel, please. Relax.’ Blackstone smiled. ‘You can step down from DEFCON 1. I’m not the ogre everyone makes me out to be. I haven’t had anybody dragged behind a gun carriage since I retired.’

McCutcheon was the only one who smiled. Caitlin maintained a studied neutrality, while Musso gave the Governor his stone face.

‘Damn, you know, this will be a very long morning if we have to stare each other down like this,’ Blackstone sighed. ‘How about a cup of coffee and a donut? Breakfast of champions. Would that suffice as a peace offering, Colonel? Initially? I’m afraid I gave up smoking some years ago, so a peace pipe is out of the question.’

Caitlin had to admit, she could murder another cup of coffee. She decided to give a bit. ‘Earl Grey all day does get tiresome. A cup of coffee would be agreeable, sir.’

‘Please, Colonel, “Jack” will do. I’m not in uniform anymore. And we’re behind closed doors. Ty . . .’ Blackstone regarded his aide with the same judgmental expression that he’d laid on Musso, tempered in this case by familiarity and a regretful shake of the head. ‘You look like you need a cup yourself. Got a little carried away making new friends last night, I’ll wager. Your penance is to fetch a fresh pot.’

The office was divided into a sitting area softened with leather couches and armchairs arranged around a polished cherry-wood coffee table. Bookshelves ran the length of one wall, only half filled. A small kitchenette with a glass-front fridge and a coffee pot completed the sitting area. The other half was a simple, featureless table of oak with a neat stack of files on the left-hand side.

Caitlin chose a seat facing Blackstone, who settled himself on the couch across from her. Musso took up a flanking position while McCutcheon came around with fresh mugs of coffee. She savoured the aroma of premium beans. The powdered shit back in Temple was undrinkable.

‘We’ve managed to stabilise the neighbouring states near the Canal Zone,’ Blackstone explained. ‘Reopening links to Costa Rica is one of the fringe benefits of those stability operations.’

She took a sip and nodded. ‘Very good, sir. Was it worth deploying a third of the Texas Defense Force to Panama for a cup of joe, though?’

He grinned like Saint Nick on Christmas morning. ‘Well, it’s
pretty good
coffee, but I didn’t order the deployment for that alone. The Canal is vital to maintaining communications with Puerto Rico and America’s eastern seaboard. And it doesn’t hurt to engage the Federation as far forward as possible. Morales would love to control that piece of real estate. He used to regularly send his envoys here to jump up and down and demand we “return” it.’

He made an inverted-comma gesture with his free hand.

‘As entertaining as it was to poke the dancing monkeys with a stick, I sent them on to Kipper. It’s really his lookout. Roberto’s so-called diplomats don’t bother coming here anymore. My only regret is that we have less contact now, and an even poorer picture of their capabilities and intent. Hopefully you can help with that, Colonel?’

She’d accepted the coffee. Why not throw him a bone? ‘“Kate” will be fine. What is your assessment of the threat, sir? It’s not exactly looming large with the national command authority. And you’ve had longer to ponder it than I have. I’ve spent the last three years assisting in the transfer of military matériel to the United Kingdom.’

Blackstone’s features darkened momentarily, driving back the softness, hardening around the edges. Caitlin thought she caught a glimpse of his temper in that brief interlude.

‘History’s idea of a joke,’ Blackstone said. ‘We bailed the Brits out in 1940 with Lend-Lease, now they step in to return the favour. And don’t they love to remind us of the reversal in fortunes.’

‘Blackstone . . .’ Musso sat forward.

‘Easy there, Marine,’ the Governor said, holding up his hand. ‘I will put my rancour away. But I can’t promise it won’t flare. Unlike Mr Kipper, I’m not much impressed by the helping hand our so-called nearest and dearest allies have been lending. I feel the need to check my wallet every time they reach out for us. Kate, the fact is the South American Federation has the makings of a blue-water navy, one that can outclass our own. They’re not there yet, but the trend lines are not good. We are on the way down. They are on the way up. Musso here has had first-hand experience of what we might face, down at Gitmo before he threw in the towel . . .’

The general made a Herculean effort to count the ceiling tiles above his head.

‘Sir?’ Caitlin held up her hand. ‘May I be frank with you? I am not a politician. I might report to one in Mr Culver, for the moment, but I’m an air force officer. I care about the mission. I am not at all interested in writing history as it transpires or interpreting the politics of that history. It would be helpful to my mission and your own interests if you simply gave me your opinion without providing a critique of the President and his policies.’

Jackson Blackstone sized her up and smiled again. It was warm, paternal, the sort of expression he might offer his daughter or granddaughter after she’d surprised and impressed him.

‘Fair enough, Kate,’ he said, leaning back with his coffee. ‘I’m just glad that Machiavellian motherfucker, Jed Culver, saw fit to send you down here on the quiet. Trust a devil like him to recognise one in Roberto. So. Let’s talk unpleasant realities. The Federation Navy poses a significant potential risk to the United States Navy and the Texas Coast Guard in the local theatre of operations.’

Caitlin held the reins of her scepticism tight. Last time she checked, there was no war with Roberto under way and no theatre of operations within which it was being fought. Blackstone carried on regardless.

‘They have maintained an extensive fleet of Type 209 submarines taken from the navies of constituent states, or former states I suppose, and it is our belief that these subs are being used right now to infiltrate agents into North and Central America. In our sphere of influence – by which I mean America’s, lest you mistake me. My Coast Guard intelligence folks tell me the 209s are providing material support to the pirate groups that operate out of Mexican and Cuban ports. Their air power is a frequent concern of mine. They possess sufficient capacity to attack the Panama Canal Zone. Half of the TDF Air Guard is tied down in Panama serving as a deterrent against that very threat. Unfortunately, half of the Guard often sits on the ground for want of spare parts. I can’t get Seattle to free up my requests for spares or support from the US Navy and Air Force. Perhaps your own assessment will help break open that log jam, Kate.’