The Rule of Three (37 page)

I undid the cuff on his left hand. I leaned back, away so that he couldn’t reach my gun, but I was still glad to have Herb standing by behind the curtain.

“You shouldn’t complain about anything. You’re one of the lucky ones,” I said.

He gave me a questioning look.

“At least you’re alive. We retaliated last night. We killed almost everybody. We stopped counting when we reached three hundred bodies.”

He looked shocked, and then that look gave way to one of disbelief. “I don’t understand. We overran you—there was only token resistance.”

“That wasn’t us,” I said. “But they were our friends. They radioed to us when you attacked. We couldn’t get there in time to save most of them, but now we got almost all of you.”

“I don’t believe you,” he said, but he didn’t sound confident.

“I don’t care if you do,” I said. “But think about it. How do you think we got you?”

He didn’t say anything. I knew my words were raising doubt as they sank in.

“And the others who were wounded, are they here?”

“We have a few others,” I lied. “Four, including you.”

“Where is this?” he asked.

“You’re in our hospital.”

“But where?”

“Don’t you know?”

Again, he looked like he was thinking.

“We call this place Eden Mills,” I said.

“The neighborhood at the corner of Burnham and Erin Mills?”

“You know about us?” I asked.

“We know.”

I tried not to react. This was just confirmation of what I feared. They knew about us, which put us in danger. That was one of the two questions we needed to ask.

“And we know all about you. We’ve been watching you from the ground and from the air,” I said.

“The ultralight belong to you?” he asked.

For a split second I thought he meant me personally, but of course he meant our community.

“The ultralight is ours.”

“We didn’t know that. Nobody thought that you’d have enough people and weapons to do that to us, to be a threat. We just thought that you were going to be our next—” He stopped.

“Target?” I asked. “We were going to be next?”

He nodded.

“That might have changed if you had known that we have over four hundred people in arms.”

“We have closer to six hundred and fifty men and—”

“Not anymore. There
were
more of you. We destroyed dozens of trucks and even shot down the Cessna.”

Again he looked shocked.

“I guess it was you and your group that destroyed the police station,” I said.

“We needed what they had. A few cops with revolvers and rifles isn’t much of a match against grenades, rocket launchers, and machine guns.”

That now answered the remainder of my questions, but I couldn’t resist reacting. “So you just killed them.”

He shrugged. “Dog eat dog.”

“Those weren’t dogs—they were people, and you just killed them.”

“It’s a war out there.”

“It doesn’t have to be, but you wouldn’t know about that.” There was nothing else I needed from him. I turned to leave.

“Hey!” he called out. “So what happens to me now … to those of us you captured? Are you going to, going to…”

“Kill you?” I asked.

He nodded.

“After what you people did, we should kill you.” I paused. “But we don’t do that. We’re not savages. We value life.”

Herb stepped out from behind the curtain. “Especially the lives of those who cooperate.”

“And if I do cooperate, what then?”

“We might let you go,” Herb said.

“Go where? I have no place to go.”

“Then we might let you stay here as a free man,” I added.

I could tell he was pondering.

“If I do cooperate, how do I know you’ll keep your word?”

“You don’t,” Herb said. “But you have to think about it. We kept you alive even after what you were part of. We had our doctors operate on you and save your life. If we wanted you dead all we had to do was just let you lie there where we found you. Do you want time to think about it?”

He shook his head. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

“Good.”

Herb motioned me to the side of the room for a conference. “Do you want to stay for this?” he whispered.

“Is it all right if I leave?”

“You’ve done enough. More than enough. I want you to go and find that girlfriend of yours and spend some time relaxing, being a kid again. At least for one evening.”

40

The next night, my mother and Herb called a committee meeting at our house.

Herb stood in front of the group. I sat on the floor at the back of the room, crowded in along with another two dozen people. They weren’t members of the committee, but they were important in the community and it was essential that they be here.

Bringing the survivors and the wounded into the neighborhood meant that everybody had heard at least something about what had happened to Olde Burnham, some version of the truth, and in every case it wasn’t something good. There was enormous fear, almost a sense of panic, that could be felt as you walked through the streets. Nothing else was being talked about.

“Thank you all for being here,” Herb said. “Obviously there is only one thing that we’re going to talk about. We have to replace rumor with fact, panic with plan, fear with a direction.”

Herb’s words were calm. He was always calm, but I couldn’t help noticing the little quiver in his voice and the slight tremor in his hand when he took a sip of water. He was looking older—the last two months had aged him.

“We have been confronted with an enemy that is much larger, has more equipment and weaponry, and from what we’ve seen is well organized. From interrogation of the prisoner, we know they are a combination of a reserve military unit that went rogue, former military men they recruited, and an assortment of random criminals they’ve incorporated. They are ruthless, without mercy. The rumors that they executed many of those they captured are correct. We have discovered that they are very much aware of our presence, and have already discussed an attack. We are a target.”

Howie jumped in. “But a well-defended target!”

Herb shook his head. “Not well enough. We have walls, but they have rocket-propelled grenades that can knock those walls down. We have armed people, but they have four times as many. We have weapons, but they have more sophisticated weapons. We cannot withstand a direct attack.”

“Are you suggesting that we surrender?” Judge Roberts asked.

“Surrender would only result in death. They showed no mercy to the members of Olde Burnham, and from what the prisoner has told me, none to other communities or individuals they have attacked, so they will show no mercy to us.”

“Could we negotiate with them?” Councilwoman Stevens asked.

“From what I’ve learned from the prisoner, they have never negotiated with anybody because it removes the element of surprise. They simply attack in force, overwhelm their victims, and take what they want—and they want what we have.”

“But if we can’t fight and we can’t negotiate, then what are you suggesting? Do we have to run?” The councilwoman stared fiercely around the room.

“Running would also result in massive deaths. Abandoning the neighborhood before the harvest would leave people with insufficient food to survive the winter.”

“What if we waited until after the harvest?” Mr. Peterson asked.

“They’re going to be here sooner than that. Possibly two or three weeks, according to the information we obtained.”

A heavy silence filled the room.

“So you’re saying we can’t stay and we can’t go,” Judge Roberts summarized. “There must be something that we can do.”

“There is,” Herb said. “There’s only one option. We have to attack.”

The entire room erupted in noise, voices raised in question and concern. Herb stood, immobile, no expression on his face, no reaction to the upheaval he’d caused.

“Please, everybody, silence!” Judge Roberts called out, but the noise didn’t subside.

Brett stood and yelled, “Everybody, quiet!”

The noise suddenly shut off.

“Let the man speak,” Brett said.

But Howie went first. “If we have fewer men and fewer arms, wouldn’t it be suicide to attack them?”

“It would be, if they knew we were coming. We’ll hit them completely by surprise, because the last thing they expect is for somebody to attack them,” Herb said. “We have the element of surprise. Plus we have Adam.”

Everybody turned to me.

“An ultralight flown by a teenager is our advantage?” Howie asked. “No, offense, Adam.”

“No offense taken.” I understood completely.

“Having eyes in the sky provides strategic advantages,” Herb said.

“And you really believe we could win if we attack,” the judge said.

“No, it’s almost certain that we wouldn’t win.”

Again the room erupted, and again it was silenced by Brett.

“Look, I’ll go into any battle you want me to,” Brett said. “You know that. But you want us to attack when you think we’ll lose?”

“Not lose, just not win. What I’m suggesting is only the first battle. The war will come next. I have a plan, and I need everybody’s agreement and cooperation for that plan to succeed.”

“But you think we
can
succeed?” the judge asked.

There was a hushed silence as everybody seemed to stop breathing, waiting.

Herb answered with only one word.

“Yes.”

41

I brought my plane in for a landing and rolled along the street, finally coming to a stop right in front of our house. Herb was waiting, along with some of the committee members. I turned off the engine, and they surrounded me before I could unbuckle.

“The groups are in place,” I said.

My mother, Howie, and Brett were each leading a group of thirty people. They had spent the day in twos and threes and fours, moving into the positions where they were going to wait out the rest of the day and into the night.

For the week after the committee meeting, all we had done was plan for this moment. Rachel and Danny basically camped out at the Petersons’ place so that we could turn our house into a war headquarters.

The attack was scheduled for four the next morning.

“Is there any sign of any of the enemy out there?” Judge Roberts asked.

“I couldn’t see anything coming along any of the major roads.”

“Good … good.”

“They’re like a snake,” Herb said. “They fed on the other neighborhood and they’ve been lying low to digest what they gorged on.”

“I just wish we didn’t have to count on that,” the judge said. “We’re practically defenseless right now.”

“We have the wall, and there are still people on it. Nobody out there knows that there aren’t many weapons in their hands,” Herb said.

“We are too vulnerable.”

“There’s no choice. We need to send enough men into battle to sting them hard, to destroy as much of their men and equipment as we can.”

“So what now?” Councilwoman Stevens asked.

“Are the escape groups all ready?” Herb asked.

“As ready as they can be.”

As always Herb had a backup plan—a plan nobody hoped would ever have to happen. The community had been divided into thirty-two groups. Each had been given food, supplies, and equipment that they would take with them if the neighborhood had to be evacuated. Herb was with my family, Todd’s family, and the Petersons, along with Howie and his family and Brett. Our little group was the best armed and, along with a second group led by Sergeant Evans, was going to try to fall back to the Peterson farm, attempt to negotiate with the people who were there, or simply recapture it if negotiating failed.

If we did end up at the farm, we would be executing Herb’s original evacuation plan that I’d stood up against. I wondered if we should have just listened to him to begin with.

“How did the plane handle?” Mr. Nicholas asked.

“Sluggish, but okay. It’s more like driving a tank than flying an ultralight.” The cockpit, engine, and fuel tank had been covered in metal to offer more protection from bullets, and the whole thing had been painted a dull gray to blend into the sky.

“Slower but safer,” Herb said.

“Unless we run into another Cessna.”

“Have you seen one?” He sounded alarmed.

“Nothing. I own the sky.”

“How long will it take for us to get into position?” Herb asked.

“At least thirty minutes.”

“Then we’ll leave at three-fifteen in the morning to allow us a fifteen-minute margin for error.”

“I’ll be ready. Is everything else ready?”

“I’ll make sure it is,” Herb said. “It looks like you have somebody else who wants to talk to you.”

I turned around. Lori was standing off to the side, waiting, trying to look casual. She didn’t look casual. She looked beautiful.

“I’ll see you later.” Herb walked away, bringing the committee members along with him, and Lori came over.

“So how are—”

She kissed me. Suddenly, what I was going to say didn’t seem that important. Nothing seemed that important.

“I don’t want you to go,” she said.

“I have no choice.”

“I know.” She looked like she was going to cry. “I wish we could go up in your plane, you and me, and just fly away, go up and up, and when we came back down everything here would be the way it was before all of this happened.”

“I guess we all have things we wish for,” I said. “I already got one of the things I wished for, for the longest time.”

“What?”

“I think you know.”

She laughed. “I guess that it didn’t quite happen the way you had planned it.”

“Nobody could have planned this nightmare,” I said.

“People wake up from nightmares.”

“Let’s hope.” I sighed. “I’m sorry, but I have to prepare the plane. Can you hang around for a while?”

Now it was Lori’s turn to sigh. “I wish, but I have guard duty on the wall right now—with so many people gone, I volunteered. You have to promise me you’ll stay safe.”