Angels of Vengeance: The Disappearance Novel 3 (20 page)

That seemed to satisfy Cindy French. She nodded once.

‘Okay then. What you need to do when you get there is keep your head down, get your ass in to see the padre at the 58th Street chapel. You tell him your sister is underage and where she’s working. Father Michael will take care of it.’ She paused, as if remembering something important. ‘You are Catholic, aren’t you? I’m sorry if I jumped to conclusions.’

Sofia sketched a tired smile and fluttered one hand at Cindy. ‘I am. We all are. Or were, anyway. I will talk to the priest. Thank you. I . . . I wasn’t sure how I was going to be able to do this. I spoke to the government here, but they didn’t seem to care.’

The information, as false as it was, didn’t seem to surprise the truck driver. ‘Well, there’s a news flash,’ she replied. ‘I’m sorry you had to waste your time barking up that tree. But I know from having to haul freight from Corpus Christi to Seattle that Blackstone and Kipper’s people don’t get along. The number of times I had to fill out one form for Texas and then exactly the same form for Seattle a-ways down the road . . . I tell you. If they’re not going to help, then I don’t see why the government can’t just get out of the way of people and let them get on with rebuilding their lives.’

It didn’t seem to be the sort of statement that required an answer, so Sofia kept her mouth shut. She had told so many lies in the last few minutes, she feared she’d begin to trip over them if she said any more. Cindy picked up the cheque that the waitress had left, squinted at it suspiciously, before pulling a couple of newbies out of her pocket and weighing them down on top of the bill with a salt shaker.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘There’s a few of us meeting up. We’re going to convoy down past Tulsa on I-35. It’s always safer when you can ride along with someone.’

Throwing a filthy look in the direction of Jasper and T Dawg as she followed Cindy out of the diner, Sofia could only agree.

Cindy French’s semitrailer was pulled up a short walk away from the diner, in the parking bay of the Flying J truckstop. The rig was enormous and blue, matching her eyes. Indeed, Cindy was a study in blues: denim jeans, a blue hoodie under her Eddie Bauer blue winter coat, and a royal blue knitted scarf. Her outfit was topped off by a strange animal-like white hat, with cartoon eyes and tails that dropped down to her collar. Sofia couldn’t decide if the hat was a rat, a cat or some sort of bunny rabbit. In a crowd of fat, male truckers, Cindy French stood out. Short as she was, just the way she carried herself gave off a strong impression that it would be unwise to cross her. The .45 on her hip further reinforced that, for anyone fool enough to make rash judgments based on her size and gender alone.

She was smirking as she took in Sofia’s reaction to her striking fashion statement. Especially the hat. A cartoon puppy hat, Sofia decided.

‘Yeah, I get a lot of looks,’ Cindy admitted, as her breath jetted out in thick white clouds.

The contrast with the overly warm, almost cloying, greasy interior of the diner was stunning. Sub-zero wind chill knifed into Sofia with lethal intent. The hooded sweatshirt was in no way adequate against the elements, and she was soon shivering, then shuddering with deep body tremors.

‘I think maybe you’re taking the whole “travel light” thing a little too far,’ opined Cindy. ‘Get into the cab before you catch your death.’

She couldn’t answer because her teeth were chattering. The older woman hurried over to the cab of
Mary Lou
, the big blue truck, and Sofia climbed in as soon as it was unlocked.

‘There’s a blanket on the passenger seat,’ Cindy called up from outside. ‘Wrap yourself up, I’ll turn over the engine, get the heat going, and then we’ll see about finding you some warmer gear.’

Rooting around in the cab, Sofia pulled out a SpongeBob SquarePants comforter. She wrapped herself deep in the folds, catching the scent of fabric softener, laundry detergent and perhaps a hint of perfume. It took a minute for the vehicle’s heating system to dull the pain of the icy fangs gnawing away at her bones. Cindy was dressed warmly, but even so, Sofia couldn’t understand how she could bear to be outside for more than a minute at a time.

The trucker insisted on joining three other drivers, who were warming their hands around a burning oil barrel on the far side of the road. Perhaps they were the ones she meant to travel in convoy with when they departed. Like many of the truck drivers, their clothes looked like they’d been salvaged from quality camping stores some time ago, but a few years on the road had roughed them up some. Sofia wondered why they didn’t just replace the ageing jackets and winter gear.

The men appeared to be in good spirits, despite the weather. One was drinking a steaming beverage from a thermos flask. The other two were smoking, which explained why they’d had to remove themselves from the truck plaza. Even the diner had been aggressively plastered with no-smoking signs. Cindy pointed back towards her truck and Sofia nodded at the men as their gaze followed the gesture. They seemed harmless enough. Middle-aged, running to fat, probably family men.

She shut down that line of thought immediately, lest it lead her to dwell on her own family. There was nothing to be gained from that at the moment.

One of the male truckers disappeared, hurrying away into the darkness, before returning a minute later with a heavy, fleece-lined coat. Cindy appeared to thank him. They all checked their watches and said their goodbyes, before the thermos man tossed away the dregs of his drink, and without further ceremony they were on the move.

Cindy hurried over to her rig, taking care not to slip on the compacted ice.

‘Here you go, darlin’,’ she said, as she climbed back into the cabin. ‘I knew Dave had this old thing stashed away in his bunk. He’s been using it as a pillow, but it’s okay. He doesn’t have cooties. It’ll keep you a lot warmer than those thin scraps of cotton you’re wearing. At any rate, it’ll do until we can stop somewhere and kit you out properly.’

‘Thank you,’ said Sofia, feeling guilty at relying on the charity of people she was lying to.

For the Burton ski jacket, however, with its thick inner lining – real lamb’s wool, unless she was mistaken – the teenage runaway could only feel desperately thankful. As soon as she slipped her arms through the sleeves, she could tell that it would go a long way towards protecting her from the viciousness of the weather outside. Sofia wrapped the coat around herself and sank back into the soft, warm embrace of the bucket seat. With the heater blowing and Dave’s jacket, she hardly needed the SpongeBob blanket.

‘We’re going to rendezvous down 35 a-ways,’ Cindy informed her, ‘and push on down to Ottawa, Kansas
.
That’s the first town outside KC’s security zone, Emporia’s the next one. But they’re both close enough to the federal settlement that the scavengers haven’t really picked ’em over. There’s still a fair chance of getting picked off by the Cavalry if they do. We can take a toilet break down at Emporia – which we’re gonna need after those Cokes, girl. See if we can get you a road pack there, too.’

She applied a little shoe leather to the pedals, crunched through a complicated ballet with the gears, and the mighty Kenworth lurched forward.

Sofia frowned. ‘But wouldn’t
we
be scavenging?’ she asked. ‘If there was a Cavalry patrol down there, why wouldn’t they arrest us, or even shoot us, for looting?’ The last thing she wanted was to fall back into the clutches of the authorities now that she was so close to escaping them.

Cindy smiled. ‘Well, legally, we would be scavenging, yes. And if the Cav swooped down in one of their helicopters, or rode by in a Hummer, and shot the hell out of us, legally – officially – we wouldn’t have a lot to complain about. But
unofficially
, the Cavalry is well aware that the trucking lines use the two towns as supply depots. They’re well beyond the city limits, and the Cav don’t much care. Anything that greases the axles, you know. Besides, we’re regulars. They come to us for news on the road, and it wouldn’t do to get on our bad side.’

The truckie didn’t seem too concerned at the prospect of helicopter gunships hammering down on them while they picked through a camping-goods store. She bounced in the seat as they pulled out of the Flying J Travel Plaza and turned westbound down Front Street, passing under Interstate 435.

‘Hauling road freight can be a dangerous business, Sofia,’ Cindy explained. ‘Seattle needs that freight hauled, especially with all the trouble they’ve been having on the railway lines. So any informal arrangements that smooth the process . . . well, the people in the field tend to look the other way. I suppose there’ll come a day when this is all less of a frontier . . .’ She waved at the darkness outside the truck windows as she spoke. ‘But for now, frontier rules apply.’

Sofia turned sideways in her seat, leaning against the padded headrest behind her. ‘And what are the frontier rules?’ she asked.

‘Whatever it takes, hon. Whatever it takes.’

‘I am familiar with that rule,’ said Sofia in a quiet voice.

The driver appeared to measure her up with a long, calculating look. Long enough that Sofia began to worry that Cindy wasn’t paying attention to the road. But she seemed to know where she was on the highway, even though it was covered in snow. Warehouses flanked both sides of Front Street, many of them still dark, deserted. Every so often, an island of lights would appear in the inky, snowy night where someone had established a business of one type or another in the ruins of the old civilisation.

‘Yes, I imagine you are familiar with it, Sofia,’ she replied, before turning away to check her rear-view mirrors. By leaning forward a few inches herself, Sofia was able to find the other trucks in a small convoy strung out behind them.

They passed – bounced perhaps was more accurate – across the Chouteau Trafficway intersection. Kansas City Power and Light maintained a large facility of spare parts at the north-west corner of the intersection. Rows of repair trucks idled in the yard, waiting for the stressed power grid to fail under the weight of the blizzard. Down the road, it was just possible to make out the grey skyline of Kansas City’s skyscrapers. Most of the roads had long been cleared of debris and wrecks.

Trains powered through the yards on the south side of Front Street bearing the logos of Kansas City Southern and Union Pacific. Sofia remembered how her father would take her down to the railroad tracks along the Missouri River, back when they’d first arrived here, to watch the trains rumble by. It bored her witless, but Papa seemed to find the sight reassuring. ‘They are stitching the wounds of this land together,’ he would say.

There was very little traffic on Front Street, mostly large trucks like Cindy’s, some of them pulling two trailer beds, reminding her of the massive articulated road trains she’d seen down in Australia. That’s what they called them – ‘road trains’. An evocative phrase, but accurate too. As best she could tell, none of the trucks in her convoy were pulling more than one trailer.

Her eyelids grew heavy and began to droop as
Mary Lou
ate up the miles. She had imagined Cindy would want to talk, but the trucker seemed content to concentrate on the drive, as if she understood that her passenger needed to rest. With a belly full of warm, heavy food, and snug in the fleecy cocoon of her new coat, Sofia wanted nothing more than to slip into a deep slumber. Yet she found it impossible to get any rest. Every time she closed her eyes, Cindy’s rig would slam into yet another pothole, bouncing her head against the side window. Pothole repair was near the bottom of the city’s list of priorities. The post-Wave firestorms may have spared KC, but at times it seemed as though it might just fall apart anyway.

‘Sorry, hon,’ Cindy said. ‘The roads are shit in this town. Always have been, even before the troubles. It’ll be better once we hit 35. Sometimes I wonder why they don’t just knock it all down and start from scratch.’

Once they’d pulled onto the Downtown Loop, the ride smoothed out. The dark shadows of the snow shrouded the world outside as they made their way around the loop until arriving on the I-35 southbound. They were rolling through parts of Kansas City she had never seen, past the West Side, where the city’s original Latino population lived. Now it was crammed with the latest generation of migrants. Indians, some Chinese mixed in with arrivals from a dozen other countries. Some of her friends at school lived down here, in the West Bottoms.

Friends.
Did she really have friends? She wouldn’t miss anyone from KC, that much was certain.

She was vaguely aware of Cindy flicking off the citizens’ band radio, to allow her to get some rest, just before her eyes closed for the last time in Kansas City.

‘Don’t patronise me, Jed,’ warned Kip. ‘Whenever you tell me I’m doing something admirable, I get a lecture about how I’m also being stupid and need to accept changed realities, or the situation on the ground, or some crap like that. Not this time.’

James Kipper folded his arms, creating a barrier between them.

‘I agree you’re onto something,’ he went on. ‘But the way we do this is by the book. You turn it over to the FBI . . .’

‘Oh, please, not the feebs . . .’

‘Yes. The FBI. And you let them run the investigation. If they agree there is enough to go on.’

Kip bit off a mouthful of cheese cruller, his breakfast of choice when Barb wasn’t around, and washed it down with a slug of hot chocolate, another indulgence. He too had a hangover after slamming a six-pack down with Barney Tench at the end of last night. It wasn’t improving his mood or his judgment this morning.

A small field of documents lay between them, the bare minimum Jed needed to make his case that Blackstone may have been involved, even if unwittingly or at some remove, with Baumer’s New York jihad. Kipper was impressed by Jed’s prosecution of the matter, but he remained entirely sceptical about the Chief of Staff’s preferred option for dealing with it.

‘Agent Monroe may well be the world expert on this guy,’ he conceded, spilling a few cruller flakes onto the blotter. ‘But you know as well as I do that she is a grossly inappropriate choice to take this any further. Put aside the fact that she’s personally compromised because of the attack on her family, she’s Echelon, Jed. She can’t blow her nose within the borders of the US without breaking half-a-dozen laws.’

Culver didn’t think much of that objection, and it showed. His eyes burned with sleeplessness, and fatigue cramped the muscles in the backs of his legs. He could feel his calves jumping and twitching as early morning traffic appeared on the streets outside Kipper’s office window.

‘If you turn this over to the Bureau, sir, they will do their usual thorough job, which will take about eighteen years. During which time Blackstone will get wind of what’s happening, giving him plenty of opportunity to build a large, roaring bonfire of incriminating evidence that could heat this city for Christmas and beyond. Monroe has the skill-set, the background and the motivation to close the file in weeks, if not days.’

Kipper’s hand cut through the air in front of him like a heavy blade. ‘Enough! Agent Monroe, who now works for Echelon UK, as far as I remember, Jed, is not a criminal investigator. She’s an
assassin
, for God’s sake! I can’t imagine a worse person to send down to Fort Hood under our imprimatur.’

Culver stood up to stretch the painful knots out of his legs, but also because his frustration was mounting to the point where he had to walk it off. He stalked over to the fireplace.

‘She is not just a trigger-puller, Mr President. She’s a lot more than that. Fact is, she had two years’ training at Quantico, pre-Wave. An accelerated investigator’s course. She can play an undercover cop, if it helps to think of her in that fashion.’

‘No, Jed,’ said Kipper. ‘It doesn’t.’ The President pushed away the better part of his breakfast, uneaten, before continuing. ‘I don’t much like what Agent Monroe does in the name of this country, what she represents about us, or at least the way we used to do things. I can accept that she herself is a dedicated servant of the people, and I’m happy to acknowledge the sacrifices she’s made and the dangers she has faced in that service. What she did in New York, or tried to do, was outstanding. But she is the wrong person for this job. The wrong tool.’

Culver’s spirits flagged a bit at that. When Kip got going on the engineering metaphors, it usually meant he’d made up his mind, or was very close to getting there. His tone grew ever more sarcastic as he spoke.

‘I mean, where is this Lupérico she talks about in her report? This guy running Sarkozy’s secret dungeon. Oh, that’s right – she blew his brains out in the jungle. No chance for anybody to verify his information, not to mention the illegality, the basic . . .
wrongness
of an extrajudicial execution. And make no mistake, that’s what happened. She flew into a sovereign country, committed an act of war, kidnapped a man, tortured him for all we know, and then executed him. What part of that process are you comfortable with, Jed? Because it sickens me from start to finish, and if I’d had any say in the matter, it simply wouldn’t have happened. I’m furious that it did, even if responsibility for the murder can’t be laid directly back on us. Calling it an Echelon operation and saying it had nothing to do with us, it’s just . . . it’s weasel words, that’s what it is. And we won’t be doing it again.’

His face had become flushed with anger, and when he finished speaking he smacked his desk with an open hand to emphasise the point. Jed struggled manfully to restrain his own rising anger. He knew that getting into a fight with Kipper would serve no purpose.

‘Mr President,’ he said wearily, ‘I’m not suggesting we send her down there to whack him. But I am suggesting that unusual circumstances demand unusual responses. Having the FBI roll up on Blackstone’s front door to ask him to come down to the office to answer a few questions isn’t going to work. I don’t see why the justice system should be preferenced when dealing with what is essentially a black operation. New York was a black op. For Baumer. And possibly for Blackstone. Two different operations, maybe, I’ll concede. And maybe Blackstone’s went horribly wrong. There will come a time when we have to address the legal consequences of what happened. But right now, I would argue very strongly that we are still in the operational moment. And that moment demands a Caitlin Monroe, not a district attorney.’

Kip shook his head. He had his anger under control, but he had not changed his mind. ‘No, Jed,’ he said. ‘If our system is not strong enough to do things the right way, it is not worth the effort we put into maintaining it. We either do things lawfully or we’re as bad as Baumer and Mad Jack. Now I want you to get on the phone to the FBI and have them send over a team to take charge of the case you’ve built up. I want that to happen today. Are we clear?’

‘Yes, Mr President.’

Jed checked his watch. Dawn had arrived, but the world outside Kipper’s window looked even darker.