Burn District 1 (21 page)

The group disbanded, Steve taking the newcomers to his fifth-wheel home while the camp women gathered clothing, sweatpants and t-shirts for them to sleep in. Laura had a veritable clothing store sorted and organized in a storage container and she’d help them find clean clothing in the morning.

Katherine Garrison sought out Laura and Carol, thanking them, asking them to forgive her husband. “He must be suffering from guilt because he ignored certain things that were happening right under his nose. I’m sure he’ll share with you when we get settled. I just hope and pray the answer is going to be that we stay here, with you. The thought of going to that city, of having to stand in line for supplies makes me sick. I’d rather steal what I need from dead people.”

“You’ve come to the right place then my dear,” Carol said.

Chapter 20

An indication that something wasn’t right; the strong smell of sewage hit him in the face when he and Ralph come in through the back entrance of Winston Clarke’s palatial Washington, D.C. apartment at four in the afternoon.

“Oh for Christ’s sake, what the hell is that?” He sniffed the air, grimacing. The maid’s room was off the back entrance. Ralph went to the door and knocked, but there was no answer. He gently tried the handle, but the door was locked.

Ralph dug his phone out of his pocket and keyed in the number to the full-time facility manager on staff who took care of the Clarke’s four-thousand square-foot apartment, their ten-thousand square foot cabin in Telluride, and the half-finished beach house in Bell Harbor, but there was no answer. More complaining from Clarke wasn’t helping the odor, which seemed to be getting worse the further into the apartment they got.

“I can hear a phone ringing,” Clarke said, looking around.

“Dial it again. Where’s my wife?” Clarke walked through the kitchen, calling her name. The elevator door was open, but the car wasn’t on the first floor. That wasn’t right, either.

“Ralph,” he called. “Check this out!” Continuing to call his wife’s name, “Elaine, Elaine!” he pulled himself up the daunting staircase one-step at a time, his breathing labored by the third step. “Ralph, answer me,” he called.

Finally reaching the second floor hallway, he stopped with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. Turning his head to look down the dark hallway toward the master suite, he saw light coming in from under his wife’s bedroom door. Moving toward it, he had an inkling of fear. Reaching behind, pulling his gun out of the holster, he held it at his side before turning the knob on Elaine’s door.

A millisecond passed between seeing her lying across the bed and something hard coming down on his head.

While Winston Clarke dealt with his sewage issue, Ben Adamiac learned that his wife was a witness to the murder of Maryann Caldwell. “Why were you in that neighborhood?” he asked, petrified. Standing in the cramped kitchen of their Fairfax bungalow, Ben and Beverly hadn’t seen each other since her return from Michigan.

“I was meeting Miranda Garrison there,” Beverly answered defiantly. Bowels roaring, he grasped the counter.

A weak but gentle man, Ben Adamiac could dish out death orders, but he’d never be able to execute a murder assignment himself. The idea terrified him that his wife could have lost her life because of something he was responsible for planning. “How do you even known about her?”

“Give me a break, Ben! I can read! I hear rumors. I see what’s happening. It’s just a matter of time before our life is going to be turned upside down. I don’t care how much money you have. My only sorrow is for my children having to live through this.”

“Let me think a minute, please,” he pleaded, putting his hand up for her to stop. There had to be some place he could send his family, a place where they could be safe. The word safe was swirling in his head when Beverly’s phone rang. It was Shannon, their daughter, a student at Michigan State. She was screaming so loudly, Ben could hear her voice from Beverly’s phone.

“Oh my God, what’s wrong?” Beverly cried. “Stop screaming, Shannon! I can’t understand you.”

“It must be a terrorist attack, mother! They’re bombing East Lansing!” Beverly repeated what she’d heard to Ben, but he already knew what it was. They in essence had taken their daughter to school in the middle of a deteriorating neighborhood, ripe for Winston Clarke’s destruction.

“Tell her we will come and get her. To sit tight.” He wasn’t sure how much longer they’d have cell phone service at the rate Eastman bombed; the last minutes could be ticking by. Even Ralph had admitted that Eastman was off his rocker and the problem was escalating exponentially. “Tell her if she must leave to try to get in touch with us, leave us a text message or send an email so we know where she is. Something.” He was energized. He was able to log onto his favorite travel site, but when he tried to get a flight out of Detroit Metro, he discovered there
were
no flights available because air travel didn’t exist. The airport had closed; neighborhoods surrounding it burned. The only alternative was to take the car. They could drive to East Lansing in twelve hours. He looked at his watch. It was just past four in the afternoon. He wouldn’t remember destroyed roads meant it would take days to get to Michigan instead of hours.

“Tell her we’ll be there by six tomorrow morning.” He sprung into action, going to his office, a small space off the living room, and sweeping everything off his desk into his briefcase. Beverly came in ready to argue and he let her have it.

“Don’t say another word. Do you want to save your children’s lives? Get Mark and Claire and have them gather their electronics and anything they can’t live without. We have one hour and then we’re leaving. Take your computer and any important papers. I’m not kidding you when I say we need to get out of here right away.” She nodded and fled the room. The sound of drawers opening and closing, packing tape ripping off the roll, doors slamming and voices murmuring with gasps echoed. Feet running up and down the stairs, the front door opening with a crash, the car being pulled into the driveway because there was no way you could load it up in the narrow garage meant progress was being made. Desk and file cabinet emptied, he carted boxes out to the car. His son was a wiz at organization. Loading boxes in to get the optimal storage, Ben went right to him and kissed his cheek. “Thank you, son. With you here we can take twice the stuff.”

The family worked together in silence until five-thirty. “We’re ready,” Beverly announced.

“Let’s go then,” Ben whispered to his wife. “We don’t need to lock up since I doubt we’ll be coming this way again.” To his kids he put on a different face.

“Ready for an adventure? Shannon, here we come!” They buckled up their seat belts, chatter all trips start out with deafening, but in a good way. Putting the car into reverse, Ben rolled down the driveway and came to a stop at the street, waiting for a black sedan to pass. It stopped midway between the Adamiac’s and a neighbor’s house before the passenger side windows rolled down, emerging assault rifles blowing the family to bits.

***

General John Eastman took early leave Friday dismissing his bodyguard and driver. Wanting to be unfettered by strangers, he was stopping by his daughter’s house in Arlington to pick up five-year-old twin granddaughters. First, he had to go home to get his wife. A lovely brick colonial in the tony neighborhood of Glennside in D.C, it had been a great place to raise a family. In addition to being a gated community, Glennside was
restricted
. Unspoken rules in place for generations, women of the household didn’t work; staff was white and English speaking, and handicapped access was always to the rear of the property. Although Eastman was instrumental in initiating the handicapped rule, after his hip replacement he had a glimmer of the inconvenience it might have caused his neighbors who cared for their elderly parents.

At the gate, a uniformed guard tipped his hat. “Good afternoon, sir,” he recited, pulling the gate open by hand. One of the wealthiest communities left in town, gates were always hand-operated at Glennside, a gesture of servitude and privilege.

“If I wanted an automatic gate, I’d be living in a trailer park,” Eastman said jovially but firmly at a board of director’s meeting when a member made the suggestion to install a gate opener so the guard didn’t have to go into inclement weather. “That’s what gate staff is for.”

Driving through the pristine neighborhood, the trees were finally bare; not a leaf dare fall upon the lawns. It was a finable infraction to have unswept lawns. Washed windows, neat landscaping and maintained homes were the statute. He pulled into the rarely used circular drive in front of his house. Standing at the front door with her coat over her arm, wife Mary waited. They had a routine that was sacrosanct. She wasn’t to move until he got out and opened the door for her, a charade put on for the neighbors that gave him great pride, emphasizing the heights to which he had climbed in life after marrying her. Wealthy Washingtonians, his in-laws courted him for their daughter. It always bothered him that they had so little respect for her; Mary could have done fine finding a husband on her own. He still loved her as much as he was capable of, and she’d been happy to share what little passion he could muster with the United States Army.

Daughter Amanda, their only child, was the love of their life. Married with twins, John and Mary did everything in their power to ensure she had a comfortable life including buying her a home, setting up trusts to pay taxes, paying for an expensive private school for the girls. Money was important to John only for the comfort and prestige it afforded his immediate family.

So when Winston Clarke, whom he esteemed above all men in Washington, approached with his strategy, Eastman was beside himself with wonder. Fulfilling what Clarke was suggesting would be the culmination of his life’s dreams; to be in control of the destiny of the United States, and to abolish the practices put into place by the worst president in the history of the country; Franklin Roosevelt. Every ailment the country suffered from pointed directly to the New Deal. Under the umbrella of the Social Security Act, unemployment and Aid to Dependent Children drained billions of dollars. The antiquated system of welfare, having started out life in the US colonies as the British Poor Laws, moderately improved by Bill Clinton’s Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act but not much.

He stood aside, holding the car door for his wife. “You look nice today,” he said, closing the door and walking around to his side. As he climbed in, she smiled.

“Thank you, dear. So do you.” She tried not to examine him too carefully; always groomed to perfection in the past, he was getting a wizened, maniacal look of late, like an old man who needed a shave and a shower. Suffering accelerating dementia, it was a toss up whether his demise began before or after getting involved with Winston Clarke. She knew all about Clarke, dreading the man and his philosophy, but there was a side of her that credited Clarke for John’s renewed interest in life and work. That drive and enthusiasm he had for each day faltered after he retired. When Clarke called him in, in the name of national security, Mary saw the excitement return, but the dementia remained.

Her daughter voiced concern earlier. “Mother, should you even be driving with him? I’m not sure I want the girls to be in the car when Dad is behind the wheel.” However, Mary was not going to confront John. He was a decorated war hero. What could she say?
Honey, your driving sucks. Our only child won’t let her children come in the car with us anymore.

They drove side by side in silence except for an occasional road rage outburst by John. Amanda lived thirty minutes from Glennside, in a similar type of gated community, but without the pedigree and a much lower price tag.

“I can’t wait to see our girl,” John said. He truly loved his family, encroaching insanity not altering it. Standing at her front door with two little angels waiting side by side, they clapped for joy seeing the car pull up and when he came to a stop, Amanda released them into their grandparent’s grasp. Running to Eastman, the girls screams for joy brought a rare smile to his face, but his daughter, seeing how grizzled he appeared, was shocked.
She’d just seen him, hadn’t she?

The gossip in town swirling around her father’s involvement what was called
Clarke’s Horror
had reached her ears. Slowly, the name was morphing to
Eastman’s Horror
. By morning, the true extent of what they’d done would be broadcast internationally as the collapse of the communication system drew near. With little time to spare, Amanda’s husband, Norm was hoping to confront Eastman, just to see how much he was willing to admit. Now, seeing his physical condition, she wondered if he was responsible for anything he had done.

Watching her aging parents walking up with the girls, Amanda brushed away a tear. Her father had always been the omnipotent, larger-than-life love of her life. Now, if what she’d heard was true, he was a monster bordering on the likes of Hitler. Holding the door open, her mother came in first and Amanda kissed her cheek. “I have to speak with you privately,” she whispered. Mary nodded, curious, wondering if her daughter was going to mention John’s appearance.

Amanda’s phone beeped as John came through the door carrying a girl in each arm. “My granddad is the strongest man alive!” Becky called.

“No, mine is!” Annie replied. The bickering and laughter continued and John and Mary sat down among the girls toys and started to play with them.

“I have to take this call,” Amanda said, holding up her phone. She went into the kitchen and closed the door. “They just got here,” she said into the phone to Norm.

“Don’t let them take the girls. I just got a video from Miranda Garrison who, it appears was never murdered after all and is in hiding. It implicates your father in the burns.”

“But he swears it was to halt the dissemination of the virus,” Amanda cried into the phone.

“It’s a lie,” Norm replied. “Don’t say anything to him, don’t question him or cross him. He’s out of his mind, Amanda. I’m on my way home right now.”