Lines in Shadow: Walking in the Rain Read online

  “What’s your take?”

  “I think it was a bad move, on several counts. First, this is his arrogance talking, plain and simple. It was obvious from the way he ran his department, and his tendency to run roughshod over more experienced men. So, now he proclaims himself king, and expects everyone to bow to his wishes.”

  Aaron paused, as if realizing how much his statement has revealed, before continuing. “Chambers has been a powerbroker in Washington for decades, but always a backroom kind of guy. Now, he’s finally coming out of the shadows.”

  “But will the military leadership obey his orders? Taking up the mantle of President, even as Acting President, will garner him support from some, won’t it?”

  Darwin’s question was direct, and to the point, and none of the men gathered could give a certain answer. Scott looked at Nick, his gaze thoughtful, but his nephew shook his head.

  “Don’t even, Scott” he protested, “Yeah, I was in most recently, but I can only offer a ground-level view, if you will. From a staff sergeant perspective, not some major general who was serving when I was still in diapers.”

  “Well, nothing to it for now, I suppose,” Darwin muttered, dismissing the matter for the time being.

  “About what you said,” Scott began, then stopped, wondering if he wanted to know the answer. “Did the captain make it? Last we heard, he was wounded and out of commission, but nothing more.”

  “Captain Devayne,” Nick replied for his father, “was evacuated back to Fort Chaffee along with the rest of the wounded. We don’t know his status, but he was alive when the convoy rolled. Lost an arm, that much I found out, but we didn’t hear the rest of his injuries, though.”

  “Alright,” Scott acknowledged with a frown at the news, “I guess it’s time for Mr. Courtland, or rather, Special Agent Courtland, to share his story. I shouldn’t have to say, nothing leaves this room. That includes, Hazel, brother,” he continued, holding up a hand to quell the protest. “Wait until you hear what he has to say, Dar.”

  With that, Aaron began his debriefing, glancing occasionally at Scott at a few points as the other two men listened with near slack-jawed amazement. Scott noticed, and managed a laugh that wasn’t quite a nefarious as the previous. Darwin, for his part, gaze his youngest brother a dirty look.

  After the inevitable question and answer session that followed, the four men realized they’d been standing in the empty operations center for nearly twenty minutes. They needed to wrap up this gabfest and get back to work.

  “So, we think we have a man on the inside, but no way to contact him, and even if we could, no way to be sure he isn’t acting under duress,” Scott concluded, summing up the information shared by Aaron. The agent frowned, but couldn’t disagree with the assessment.

  “But if we got their families out,” Nick queried, looking hard at Scott, “do you think they would come over to our side, or at least stay out of the fight?”

  Aaron thought about this for a second. “I’m on the outside looking in, but I think the answer is yes. Nobody likes having their family taken hostage, and despite what others might think, agents are as human as anybody else. I think most would come over to our side, whatever we are calling it now.”

  “Okay, Agent Courtland,” Darwin finally said, “you’ve given us a lot to think about. On top of everything else, we will see what we can do. This information has to get to Colonel Hotchkins, though. Top Secret, or however you guys classify this sort of thing. Are you willing to meet with him?”

  Aaron nodded, then tried a half-hearted grin. “I’d like to keep my cover, if possible. As far as I’m concerned, my career in law enforcement is effectively over, but there’s this girl I met at the Porter’s, and I’d rather not come out about my prior activities just yet.”

  Darwin and Nick laughed at that comment, and Darwin suggested he needed to ‘come out of the closet’ about his old job before he went much further.

  “Alright, I guess we can let the rest of the guys back in,” Darwin announced, cutting off the mirth. “I’m sure they are waiting with anticipation to hear of my little brother’s latest exploits, anyway.”

  “Oh, Mr. Keller,” Aaron agreed, “you have no idea. And wait until he tells you what he’s planning to do next.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  “So, how’d it go?”

  Sarah’s simple question made Scott blink and look up. He was sitting on an upended feed bucket at their designated spot, fifteen minutes before noon, and drifting in and out of a light doze.

  “How do you think it went, when I unveiled my master plan to poison over two thousand people and then gun down the survivors? They were appalled. I think the word ‘monstrous’ was used more than once.”

  “Fuck ‘em.”

  The short, hugely inappropriate response made Scott’s eyes go wide. First Darwin, and now this. Sarah was not a potty-mouth, and her casual use of the expletive was completely unexpected.

  “Scott,” she began, “you and our little team, we are the tip of the spear. How many of these folks,” she gestured vaguely at their friends and neighbors hustling about,” have the first idea of what you’ve seen, what we’ve seen, out there?”

  Scott nodded, getting what Sarah meant. Everyone had been trained to fight to some extent, and many had been forced to man the fences when the swarms of starving city folk hit the countryside in their ravenous waves, but few had actually witnessed the latest levels of depravity to which the world outside had sunk.

  “So, you think living the simple country life has spoiled these people? Now that we aren’t getting sniper fire every day, I mean.”

  Sarah just shook her head, buying time to frame her answer.

  “What was that quote from Orwell? Something about people sleep peacefully while rough men stand at the guard?” Sarah finally ventured. “No, I don’t think we have that problem. It’s just…as a society, we don’t have a track record of hacking off our neighbor’s arms because they are from the wrong tribe. The savagery is beyond what many can comprehend, so they think we are somehow mistaken.”

  “But you never doubted. Even if you didn’t see what we saw, you accepted what Sergeant Barden and I reported.”

  “That’s because I’ve seen my own version of Hell, Scott,” Sarah replied softly, and Scott felt the urge to kick himself. Instead, he plowed on with the conversation.

  “Well, Darwin has us on twenty-four hour stand down. Well, that’s Nick falling back on military speak. Dar just said we looked like hammered shit and needed some rest before we continue with our planned mission.”

  “So, it’s still a go?”

  “Oh. Most definitely. I said they were disturbed by the plan, not shooting it down. And I think they know, at a gut level, this camp is a threat to our lives and the lives of everyone living in the area. They are a cancer, and need to be excised. Plus, Nick wants me and Aaron to go see the Colonel today. What we found out about the other camp can’t go out over radio, even if it was secure.”

  “You need any back up?” Sarah asked carefully. Part of her wanted to go, but another part wanted to stay and spend time with her girls. Scott didn’t need to be a mind reader to know this, since it was the same inclination he had. Duty, however, demanded otherwise.

  “No, not likely. There’s enough going, and too many would just attract scrutiny. I want you to stay close to the shelters today, though. Pass that around. Just to be safe. Thanks to Conners, we’ll have the fake transmitters fired up, so that should help draw attention away.”

  “I heard the plan mentioned, but I don’t understand,” Sarah admitted. “What transmitters, and why are they fake?”

  “Sid actually came up with the idea. You know those bunkers we dummied up? Just dug some holes and laid in some sandbags?”

  “Vaguely,” Sarah replied. “That was James’ crew running a lot of that project. I thought they were kind of a long ways off to all be fall back positions, though.”

  “Well, now some of them serve
a second purpose. They are relay stations, and they rebroadcast our radio. Or just random strings of letters and numbers, as a fake code.”

  “That’s certainly a sneaky idea Sid came up with, but I’m not sure what good they will do.”

  “First, we want the drones distracted, and we want to lure them in closer to the ground. Even with a high-resolution camera, a drone can’t get a good picture of underground installations. The idea is to sucker them in so our concealed sniper teams can take them out.”

  “That sounds very dangerous. Aren’t they armed and armored?”

  “Armed yes. Not armored, but hard to spot. It is dangerous, and we know the other side has at least a few drones that can carry a payload. The shooters are all using 50 caliber rifles, and they are covered under layers of blankets and insulation designed to defeat the thermal sensors. It’s all Buck Rogers stuff to me, but Nick and some of the other younger guys who’ve had experience with drones came up with the idea. They aren’t real hopeful of getting many shootdowns. However, every Hellfire they can convince the operators to waste on an empty bunker is one less they can use here.”

  Sarah shuddered at the idea but didn’t want to dwell on such a depressing topic. She was relieved to see Keith and Ben wandering up to the rally point, and Scott gave them the news to take the rest of the day off and catch up on sleep. Next, she saw Kevin Perkins and Yalonda, and they received the same news. Sarah noted that Kevin and Yalonda arrived separately, from different sides of the campus, but left together. Interesting, that.

  With his duties now completed, Scott stood up and dusted off the seat of his pants. Sarah noticed how tired he looked, like he was worn to the bone, and wondered when Scott last enjoyed a full night’s sleep.

  “What time are you heading out?”

  “Not until 1500 hours,” Scott replied.

  “You could take a nap.”

  “No, I still need to go see Bella before I go,” Scott said, slinging his rifle. Still in his role as bandit, he carried the bolt action Ruger Scout rather than his usual PTR-91 or one of the M4 carbines. Unlike most of the citizens of Kellerville, Sarah noticed Scott carried a long arm with him wherever he went, as did the other members of his family. Must be some story there, she thought.

  “You need the sleep more,” Sarah said gently, not wanting to say that seeing her Daddy this tired, really done in, was liable to frighten the little girl.

  “I’m not doing too good with that,” he finally admitted to what everyone else could see.

  “Let’s go see about little Bella Bean then,” Sarah suggested, “and maybe after, you can grab an hour or two of downtime. You can’t keep going like this, Scott.”

  He knew she was right. Knew it down in his aching bones.

  “Alright, let’s see what those girls are up to first, though,” he relented, at least a little bit.

  Finding the girls was no more through than asking around, just like the process for locating the other members of his family, and soon Scott and Sarah found their girls working along with a larger group of early teen and younger kids. They were busy digging potatoes, part of the early crop, and seemed to be covered with more dirt than the tubers they were unearthing.

  The girls weren’t playing in the dirt, exactly, but crawling on your hands and knees, and digging in the mounds of rich soil for the bounty underneath, wasn’t something you did in anything but your grubbiest set of clothes. Scott counted at least thirty of the industrious but filthy little workers hard at work, and even as they approached, he saw his little one lugging a pail of potatoes over to the wagon in the center of the row. She had to strain to get the bucket up to the lip of the slat-sided wagon, but politely shrugged off offers of help from some of the older girls as she completed the task.

  When she turned, Scott could see the moment she recognized him. Her smudged little face, looking like a street urchin from a Dickens tale, instantly brightened and she broke into a run. Grabbing him around the waist, the little girl seemed overcome by emotion as she clung to her father. Looking around briefly, Scott saw wistful looks cast their way by girls not much older than his Isabella. Orphaned or abandoned, these girls had no one to hug, and no one to wipe away their tears now.

  The sight filled Scott with a deep sense of sadness he fought to conceal from his daughter as she began to tell him about her day, and how much she’d missed him. Before the lights went out, Isabella only saw her father for a few minutes before school every day, and a few hours at night or on the infrequent weekends he wasn’t working. He’d been a part of her life, but it wasn’t until after the old world ended that he realized how much of his little girl’s life he was missing each day.

  While Scott was occupied, Sarah found her two daughters, equally dirty and fully as enthused by their mother’s sudden appearance. She’d held off on seeking them out, and choosing to go through the pretense of needing to take care of her gear and weapons first. Really, she’d just decided to wait for Scott so Bella Bean, as she’d taken to calling Scott’s daughter, wouldn’t be worried her father wasn’t coming back. They’d lost enough defenders over these last months that it happened, and children picked up on such things.

  So, instead of taking that nap, Scott and Sarah spent the next two hours digging potatoes and spending time with their kids. Work was done, but accompanied by a bit of visiting and not a little laughter. Then, it was time for Scott to get cleaned up for his truck ride over to the Colonel’s temporary headquarters.

  “Take care of my girls,” Scott said to Sarah as he shouldered his rifle, heading for the outdoor showers. It was their ongoing commitment, and he always included Delilah and Shay in his command.

  “You know I will,” came the reply. “You coming back tonight?”

  Scott didn’t know, and told her as much. But, even if he got back in the morning, they would still be heading out to finish things at Lowell that night. They had a plan still to complete, and a

  debt of pain to be paid.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The Quality Inn in Siloam Springs had seen better days, but made sense as a staging ground for Colonel Hotchkins and the three companies rumor claimed he’d brought with him, in addition to the tattered remnants of Captain Devayne’s single company left in the area. Scott and Aaron were ushered in the see the colonel with a minimal wait, and he found the man bent over a map with a magnifying glass when he was waved into the room.

  Looking up, the colonel saw his visitor and stuck out his hand. He’d met the officer before, but he was surprised he remembered Scott.

  “Ah, Sergeant Keller of the First Kellerville Scouts. Great to see you, my friend. How is your family?”

  The Colonel didn’t look happy to see anybody, except maybe the front desk clerk at this very establishment. Scott thought the colonel could use the chance for a late checkout. The man looked worn around the edges, and appeared as bone-tired as Scott himself felt. This was the man who’d successfully commanded Fort Chaffee through the siege, and led the counterattack that broke the back of the forces seeking entry. A starving, pitiful mass of humanity, which probably made his job worse. Nobody likes to kill a man, or woman, only trying to get enough food to feed their family. Scott had participated in his own share of those slaughters throughout this wretched summer. Nobody really won those fights. The victor just counted the cost and buried the losers, knowing they’d likely killed their families as well.

  Fortunately, the bitterness of that struggle didn’t seem to weigh down the colonel. No, he appeared exhausted, but his soul remained intact for now.

  “Family is surviving, sir. How about yours?”

  “The same. The crops are still growing, at least. We lost a lot of good people already, and likely will lose more to these raiders. I understand you have some information for me?”

  Looking around the room, Scott saw a command post he might have expected to see for a company command, not a brigade, or even a full battalion. All total, Scott understood the colonel’s entire force num
bered less than three hundred men. Not a lot, and most of them were deployed away from the hotel itself to reduce the chance of a Hellfire strike on the building.

  No, the hotel was used because the large conference rooms gave his men a ground floor area to call home in their sleeping bags, plus a four-story high structure that gave his lookouts a good view of the surrounding area. Proximity to the highway also made this a good pick, as did the brick exterior of the building.

  Scott carefully withdrew the plastic case for the packet of reports he’d stuffed under his plate carrier, watching the colonel’s lips turn up in amusement as he set the clear container on the littered table. The flexible case was waterproof and shaped like a skinny notebook.

  “Care to explain?”

  “Didn’t want anything in my hands,” Scott said simply, then continued when he saw the colonel wasn’t satisfied. “No reason to mark myself with a briefcase or messenger bag, colonel. Snipers look for things like that.”

  “How the hell…” Hotchkins started, then closed his mouth quickly, letting his teeth click together. “How did you come by that little nugget, Sergeant?”

  “Just heard it mentioned one time. If you want to avoid the third eye, don’t make yourself conspicuous. Same reason you have the subdued rank tabs, sir.”

  “And you’re worried we have enemy snipers in the area?”

  “No, sir. Just a habit I’ve gotten into recently. When I have been under sniper fire.”

  “Good enough. Now, I gather you have some intelligence that can’t wait. I’ll read the reports, but give it to me in a nutshell, Scott.”

  “Well, I think we have the location of the other camp, sir,” Scott announced carefully. “Haven’t gotten eyes on the site yet, but I have confirmation from two independent sources.”

  Hotchkins seemed electrified by this news and started pawing at the stack of documents protected in the clear case. He scanned the first few pages and nodded as he read, absorbing the details like a sponge, no doubt. Scott heard the man was sharp as a tack as well as much beloved by his men.