Winter's Edge: A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Adventure (Outzone Drifter Series Book 1) (30 page)

Picking up the chair, he walked unsteadily over to where Brick now sat on the floor, leaning up against the wall where two of the braves had dragged him. He placed the chair beside him then sitting down, pulled out one of his Glocks, and slid back the rack to make sure a round was chambered.

Brick looked at him warily. “Listen, Brogan, whatever truck you got with Haiden, there’s no need to kill me,” he said, his breathing ragged from the bullet he’d taken in the chest. “That sonofabitch ran out, leaving us to face the music. My brother’s dead, and I’m bust up good. How about we call it quits?”

Brogan studied the big man’s wounds. Years of battlefield experience told him that, given medical assistance, he would probably survive them.

“Really?” Brogan raised a bloody hand. “How many fingers you think that’s going to cost you?”

“That’s up to you.” Brick lifted up his left hand. “You decide.”

Brogan gazed down at him, and for a moment couldn’t help but reflect on what a crazy world he lived in.

“An eye for any eye, a finger for a finger. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Sure, call it what you want.”

“How about for two innocent lives? What should I take for them?”

Brick looked at him uncomprehendingly. “What the hell you talking about?”

“See, the mistake you’re making is, you think I came only for Ritter. Truth is, I came for you all.”

A trickle of sweat ran down the side of Brick’s face, which had turned gray from the tremendous pain he was in. “I don’t understand,” he said. “What did any of us ever do to you? This makes no sense.”

“Before I kill you, I’m going to answer that. You need to know the reason I’m about to put a bullet in your head.” Brogan looked over at Stalking Bear and the four braves, who stood listening quietly to the exchange. “It’s only fair the chief and his men understand too, they saved my life after all, even if they look at me different once I tell them.”

The chief gazed down at Brogan. “Whatever you say stays within the tribe. I’ll vouch for that.”

“Thanks, Chief.” Brogan turned back to Brick. “Let me start by telling you who I am. Before I came to the Outzone, I spent seven years as a police lieutenant in New Haven’s Special Reaction Force. Before that, I was in special ops during the war. I’ve been a professional soldier or police officer most of my adult life. Two weeks ago, I quit my job and came to the Outzone—to kill the three of you.”

A weak smile came over Brick’s face. “I was right all along. You’re just plain crazy.”

Brogan shook his head. “No, I’m not.” He stared fiercely at the man. “It’s my turn to jog your memory. You remember a tunnel raid you made six weeks ago into the State…outside Providence?”

A look of surprise came over Brick’s face. “Th-the two women…?”

“My wife and daughter.”

Brogan placed the muzzle of the Glock to Brick’s temple. “When you murdered them, you killed a part of me too. The good part,” he whispered.

Looking into his eyes, Brogan squeezed the trigger. Brick’s head jerked to one side and blood sprayed over Brogan’s arm, the sound of the shot reverberating around the room. The bandit’s huge body twitched a couple of times, then was motionless.

Inside, Brogan felt nothing, save a hollow emptiness. As dead as the eyes he stared into. Lowering the pistol, a wave of fatigue swept over him and he slumped forward on the chair. Then once more, darkness overcame him.

Black Eagles Camp, Outzone (7 miles south of Two Jacks)

He awoke to the sound of a motorcycle engine, its harsh roar passing no more than a few feet away. Opening his eyes, Brogan was surprised to find himself on the floor of a tent, zipped up inside a sleeping bag, his nose inches away from one of the tent’s nylon sides. How he had gotten there, he had no idea. The last memory he had was of putting a bullet into the side of a giant’s head. After that, he remembered nothing, and realized he must have collapsed shortly afterward. Outside, it was daylight and he knew he had been asleep for several hours.

Lifting his left hand out of the sleeping bag, he saw that the stump of his little finger had been wrapped tightly in white gauze, held in place with surgical tape. The sight stirred a vague memory, of someone tending to him during the night while he thrashed around in a delirious state.

He pulled out his other hand and raised it to his face, touching the skin cautiously. It felt tender and swollen, but he was relieved to discover that, other than several cuts and some heavy grazing, nothing appeared to have been ripped up so bad it wouldn’t eventually heal.

He did feel a terrible fatigue. A bad headache was coming on, and focusing his eyes for any length of time was impossible. Against his will, his eyes started to droop and soon he was asleep again.

He next woke to the sound of the front flap of the tent unzipping and a gust of cool air swept over his face. The flap pulled back and a figure stepped inside. Looking up, he saw it was a young woman. A pretty one, small and lithe, with long black hair that ran halfway down her back.

“You’re awake,” the woman said, kneeling by his side. “I was getting worried. Thought you might never wake up.”

Brogan forced his eyes to focus on the girl. She looked familiar, and he realized she was the one from the other day: the girl Stalking Bear had dispatched to talk to him during their first encounter. The crazy one who had pulled the wheelie on him.

“I know you. I met you the other day on the plains. Roja, is that right?”

The girl nodded. “That’s right. You know, when I said you should come visit me, I don’t remember saying anything about you sharing my tent, nor about having to look after you, neither.” She gazed down at his swollen face and smiled. “And you’re a lot uglier than I remember.”

Brogan tried to smile back, the effort causing his bruised cheeks to ache. “I’m in your tent? So, uh, where did you sleep last night?”

“Right beside you.” Roja indicated a rolled-up sleeping bag stuffed in a corner of the tent. “Even gave you my pillow.”

“Oh, now that wasn’t gentlemanly of me. You’re making me feel guilty.”

“No need to. I’m taking it back as soon as you’re better. Hey, where you going?”

Brogan had unzipped the side of the sleeping bag and was struggling to get out. “To find the chief,” he said. “I need to know what the news is on Ritter.”

Roja put a hand on his chest and pushed him down again. “You’re not going anywhere,” she said firmly. “Relax. I know everything that’s happened. I’ll fill you in.”

“Okay,” he said. “Shoot.”

“Wait, I need to check your condition first. Your eyes don’t look so good. Are you having trouble focusing them?”

“Maybe a little,” Brogan admitted. He had a splitting headache now, too. “You got any aspirin here?”

“I’ll fetch you some in a moment. First, I need you to sit up.”

Roja helped him into an upright position. It was difficult inside the tent without any wall for him to lean against, and he had to use his hands for support. Bending over him, the girl peered into both ears, then inspected his nose.

“No bleeding or fluids,” she said. “That’s good.”

Sitting in front of him and placing his arms by his sides, she flexed both his elbows to a ninety degree angle, then held out a finger in front of him.

“Touch my finger, then touch your nose as fast as you can,” she ordered him.

Brogan stretched out his hand, touched his finger against hers, then completely missed his nose, prodding himself in the side of the cheek. He knew the answer to her simple test before she even spoke.

“You’ve got a concussion,” she said, a look of concern on her face. “You’re going to need to take it real slow for a few days.”

Brogan was surprised by her tone. Roja appeared far more tender than the tough girl he had encountered that first day they’d met.

“Sure, I’ll take it slow. Now let’s get back to last night. Last thing I remember is killing a man. How about you take it from there?”

Roja spent the next ten minutes bringing Brogan up to speed. She began by telling him that moments after killing Brick, he had slumped in his chair and fallen to the floor. Stalking Bear had picked him up and slung him over his shoulder, then took him down the stairs and out of the bar, where he had been placed between the chief and another brave on the back of the chief’s Harley and ridden out of the town.

When they arrived at the camp Roja, who had waited up, ordered that he be brought to her tent where she’d cleaned him up and bandaged his finger. The entire time, Brogan had remained unconscious until now, noon the following day.

Brogan had been listening to Roja as carefully as his groggy head allowed. “And Ritter?” he asked. “The chief manage to track him down?”

Roja shook her head. “No news yet. We’ve had braves looking for him all night. Maybe the last group that got sent out this morning have something. They’re due back soon.”

“Okay,” Brogan said, disappointed.

A serious expression came over Roja’s face. “Everyone here knows what these men did to your family,” she said. “There’s not a brave in the camp who doesn’t want to find this man.”

“Thank you,” Brogan said quietly. There was still one more thing he needed to know. He stared at Roja and frowned. “So how on earth did Bear end up in the Paradise Lounge last night?” he asked, calling the chief by the name both Roja and the Black Eagle warriors the previous night had used. “He said something about one of the braves being my friend, the one wearing the cowboy hat. Can you enlighten me on that?”

A look of distaste came over Roja’s face. It bordered on unpleasant. “That was no brave,” she said. “That was a stranger. The kind we might normally kill around here.”

Brogan stared at her in confusion. With his concussion, he wondered whether he’d heard her right.

“He’s an agent. Sent from the State by an old friend of yours.”

A light switched on in Brogan’s head. What had seemed like an impossible chain of events now all started to make sense. Through the lens of a drone night-vision camera, John Cole must have seen him being assaulted outside the Paradise Lounge, and despite what his friend had told him back in Metro, had intervened to help him after all.

“This man…he came here last night and told Bear what happened to me?”

“Yeah, he rode into camp, telling us he was a friend of yours. That he’d seen you get beat up and dragged into the Paradise.”

“I see.” Brogan had no idea what type of story the agent had spun. Whatever it had been, he had taken a hell of a risk. It suddenly occurred to him that the man he’d caught a glimpse of in the shadows on the way to the Paradise with Marlee might have been the agent, not a hobo or drunk.

“He said you’d told him you were a friend of the Black Eagles, and that he came to us, not knowing what else to do.” Roja flashed Brogan a stern look. “Not sure how that works, seeing as you two never even met before.”

Brogan said nothing. He gazed at her uncomfortably, and shrugged.

“Anyhow, Bear figured it all out in the end,” Roja went on, saving him from looking anymore awkward. “He got everything out of him.”

“Smart man.”

Roja shot him another of her looks. “It didn’t take a genius once you told him you’d been in New Haven’s SRF until two weeks ago.”

Brogan smiled weakly. “Guess not. I’d like to meet this guy, to thank him. He saved my life.” Perhaps the agent would have news on Ritter too. Brogan hoped Cole was still keeping track of him.

“Don’t worry, he’ll come by later today. Bear gave him permission.”

“That’s good. You know, I thought I was a goner,” Brogan said, talking to himself as much as Roja as the realization of just how lucky he’d been seeped in. “Man, I can’t believe how stupid I was. I behaved like an amateur. If I ever did something like that in my old job, they’d have fired my ass the same day.”

“You chose the wrong girl to trust in,” Roja said. “Bad move.”

“I’d drawn a blank looking for Ritter and the brothers. Just got desperate trying to find them,” Brogan explained, embarrassed now by his incredible stupidity.

“You need to learn who to trust. Especially when it comes to women,” Roja said, rising to her feet. “You looked tired. Get some more sleep. I’ll be back later with food.”

Mid-afternoon, Brogan awoke to the sound of the tent flap opening again. He presumed it was Roja returning with food. Instead he raised his head to see a man crouched on his heels by the entrance, clutching a black leather hat in one hand. Brogan ushered him inside.

“Sorry for barging in like this,” the man said in a friendly tone. “There’s no way of knocking on a tent door, though. Leastways none that I know of.”

“That’s okay,” Brogan said, sitting up. “I was hoping you’d come by. I got plenty of questions to ask you. More than anything, though, I want to thank you for saving my life.”

“John Cole is the man you need to thank,” the man said, sitting down on the floor beside Brogan. “I was only following orders.”

The man introduced himself as NIA Special Agent Darell Holmes. Of medium build, Holmes spoke with a rural East Texas twang and had an easy, relaxed manner about him.

Holmes told Brogan he was NIA’s one and only agent in Two Jacks. So far from the State border, there wasn’t much need for intelligence gathering around these parts.

“The town might be full of gamblers and degenerates, but that just makes ‘em way too busy to become revolutionaries,” the agent said with a grin. “Most of the time I sit around playing cards and drinking whiskey.”

“Nice cover. All in the line of duty too. Tell me, how do you stay in contact with Metro from here? I guess you got a radio?” Brogan asked him.

Holmes nodded. “Yeah, I got a short wave radio that sends encrypted transmissions.”

“Isn’t that kind of dangerous—owning something like that around here?”

“We’ve got a good protocol, and seeing as there’s no safe houses in Two Jacks, it’s not like anyone is actively trying to hunt me down,” Holmes explained. “But yeah, if anyone ever found out I was a little more than just another drunk gambler with a hard-on, things might get a little ugly.”