Gone to Ground (33 page)

“O’Reilly’s mentioned you.”

“He has? I’m surprised. What has he said?”

“He said that one would be lucky if you were on his side, there was no one better. But one didn’t want you after him, because you wouldn’t stop until you succeeded.”

Rickards looked impressed, and flattered to some degree, but no less intimidating.

“Where are the children?”

“What children?”

Rickards took on a look of almost fatherly exasperation. “Come now. You know which children. The Craigsons, and Alysa Thalman.”

Maggie started to answer, but Rickards stopped her with a raised hand.

“I already know that they met up with O’Reilly. He said he sent them on with some ‘man’ who’d been here already when he arrived. He didn’t mention you, and I’m forced to the conclusion that this ‘man’ really didn’t exist. So that means you probably know where he’s hidden them.”

“I...”

A soft groan issued from O’Reilly. Maggie looked down and was startled to see that he’d opened his eyes and was looking at her fuzzily.

45

Looking back, Rickards thought, it hadn’t taken long at all for someone to come, though time passes slowly in the dark. The only sounds to keep him company were the occasional rattle of rocks as they tumbled off the pile left in the middle of the tunnel. He hadn’t bothered to check whether O’Reilly was alive or not when Harlan was still there, and he couldn’t tell afterward as he waited in the darkness. He doubted it. If the shots hadn’t killed him, then the cave in probably finished the job.

Wrong again, apparently.

O’Reilly’s eyes were open, and it was obvious that against all odds he was very much alive. Rickards stood looking down at the woman who’d come to O’Reilly’s rescue and felt a growing sense of unreality. Why the hell didn’t anything go as expected?

“Wha... what happened?” O’Reilly asked, trying to focus on the woman’s face, apparently unaware that Rickards stood nearby, watching.

Where’d he find her? Rickards wondered. He’d have heard if someone else had escaped with O’Reilly or the children. He supposed O’Reilly could have run into her at one of the ranches, or out on the road. He gritted his teeth. How many other surprises was he going to get?

From what he could tell in the dim light she was attractive beneath all the dirt. Long hair, apparently dark blond, worn in a braid. She was undeniably filthy, as were they all, and tears had carved their way down her face, leaving darkened channels in the dirt. The eyes were what bothered him the most, looking at him with a haunted expression that struck a chord, though he couldn’t pinpoint why.

“It’s okay, O’Reilly. There’s been a cave in, and you’ve been shot, but it’s going to be okay.” The woman, Maggie she said her name was, brushed her hand across O’Reilly’s face tenderly, then looked back up at Rickards’, her own features hardening.

A short burst of laughter, followed by a paroxysm of coughing startled both the woman and Rickards, causing them to break eye contact and look at the man lying on the floor. “You’ve got a damned strange idea of okay, if this is it,” O’Reilly finally said, trying to catch his breath. “What does it take to make things not ‘okay?’”

“I’ve just met your Captain Rickards.”

O’Reilly’s eyes sharpened, and he struggled to sit up, trying to follow her gaze. The movement wrung a groan of pain from him, and Rickards could see a fresh gush of blood from the wound in his right shoulder. Collapsing back on the ground, O’Reilly seemed to pass out briefly, then opened his eyes again, turning his head.

“I guess that would qualify. I...” O’Reilly seemed to drift out for a moment, then collected himself. “I don’t suppose you had the decency to get pegged by a few rocks when the roof fell in, did you?”

“Sorry, not a scratch.” Rickards answered smiling slightly at the jab.

“Damn,” O’Reilly said softly. His eyes seemed to lose focus for a moment and Rickards thought he was going to lose consciousness again.

The woman was trying to use his shirt to staunch the flow of blood from the wound. Fear was written all over her face, but her actions were swift and sure. Once again Rickards wondered where O’Reilly’d picked her up. She seemed to be a handy type. Just the kind of woman you’d want to take with you when you were on the lam, if you could ignore the acerbic attitude.

Taking another step forward and dropping to one knee next to O’Reilly, Rickards spoke with intensity. “What made you run?”

O’Reilly’s eyes shifted to Rickards, but he didn’t answer.

“O’Reilly, what made you run? And don’t give me any bullshit about not liking the food at the APZ.”

O’Reilly let out a soft cough of laughter.

“Can’t this wait,” Maggie asked irritably. She’d torn off the bottom of O’Reilly’s shirt, and was pressing it hard against his shoulder. “Can’t you see he...”

“You saw the memos?” O’Reilly’s voice was so quiet that Rickards almost didn’t hear it.

“What memos?”

“The memos about the population consolidation across the globe? The ones that were accidentally sent with the census?”

“I found them, yes. Was that it? That the governments are planning to keep the APZs?” Rickards scowled. When the APZs were formed, he’d agreed with the governmental assessment that it was the best way to make sure that everybody received what they needed. When it became apparent that the APZs were here to stay, he had mixed feelings. It wasn’t his job to evaluate the situation in the world and make policy to deal with it. His job was to carry out the policy set down by his superiors, and he’d done so to the best of his ability. He might not necessarily have agreed, but he followed through.

O’Reilly had drifted off again. Rickards reached out and grabbed his shoulder, shaking it sharply.

“Hey, stop!” Maggie reached out and hit his hand away. “What the hell do you think you’re doing!”

Rickards ignored her, focusing on O’Reilly. His eyes were half closed, and Rickards wasn’t sure how aware he was, but he tried again. “Was that it? The APZs?”

“What was phase one?” O’Reilly’s voice was so low that Rickards nearly missed it.

“Phase one? What do you mean?” Rickards realized that Maggie was staring at him. She hadn’t shown any signs of surprise at the conversation so far. No reaction when he’d said the APZs were there to stay. No shock about the memos. He must have told her. But this talk of ‘phase one’ was unexpected.

“The memos... one of them called.... called the APZs phase two. The consolidation of population.” O’Reilly’s voice was fading. His eyes were closed and Rickards wondered how much longer he could hold out. “It talked about a phase one. What was it?”

Rickards shook his head, even though O’Reilly wasn’t looking at him. “I don’t know what phase one was. I don’t remember a memo talking about phase two. I didn’t really read them. They were classified. I was told to destroy them. Which memo was it?”

For a moment Rickards thought that O’Reilly was gone, his stillness was so profound. Then he drew a shallow breath and coughed.

“Stop. Just stop,” begged Maggie, still pressing the piece of material against O’Reilly’s shoulder. A piece of material that was rapidly staining dark in the dim light.

Rickards looked at her, then back at O’Reilly. “Which memo was it?”

“Don’t remember. I... don’t remember.” The last sounds sighed out of O’Reilly. The stillness returned and once again Rickards couldn’t tell if O’Reilly was dead or alive. He looked at Maggie, who was staring back at him, wide eyed.

Rickards felt a disorienting sense of deja vu. He just couldn’t put his finger on the source of the feeling. He closed his eyes, trying to think. The picture in his mind tickled the edges of his memory.

“It’s not right, you know.”

Rickards opened his eyes to see Maggie watching him. Those wide dark eyes filled with a strange mixture of defiance and pleading. She continued to put pressure on O’Reilly’s wound, but her eyes were on Rickards.

“How can it be right to force people into the APZs?”

“How else can we make sure everyone is taken care of?” Rickards answered.

“Look at history.” Maggie countered. “When has locking people into ghettos, internment camps or things like that ever been successful? How are the APZs any different, other than we’re locking the entire population into them, rather than just select groups?”

At the mention of internment camps the picture that Rickards had been seeking flooded back into his mind. The dream the night they’d gotten a fix on the children. The girl in the hall, and on the train platform. The haunted eyes, begging him for help.

Rickards threw himself backward, staggered to his feet, and stared down at Maggie’s confused expression.

The eyes, pleading for help. In his dream he hadn’t been able to reach the girl in time. She’d had to get on the train. Even though she’d reached out for him, he hadn’t been able to help her.

Maggie looked up at him from her place beside O’Reilly. Her eyes were eloquent.

46

Maggie stared at Rickards, startled by his reaction to her argument. He looked as though he’d seen a ghost, and for a brief, hysterical moment, Magg
ie wondered if the specter of that long dead prospector had materialized behind her.

She fought the urge to look over her shoulder, and maintained her eye contact with Rickards.

“Who are you?” Rickards said in a hoarse whisper, staring at her mesmerized.

“I told you. My name is Maggie Langton.” Maggie felt confused. She wondered if maybe Rickards had hit his head during the cave in, and was just now showing the effects.

“How did you get here?  I mean, how did you wind up with O’Reilly?”

“I’m a journalist. Friends in the Phoenix APZ got word to me what was happening there, so when my area was assigned to be consolidated, I took my... I left. I’d written about this ranch, so knew about the camp here in Adobe Canyon.” Maggie was starting to get irritated all over again. O’Reilly needed attention, and there were limits to what she could do sitting here in the dirt. Of course, if Rickards decided to kill her, she wouldn’t be able to do much anyway, so she tried to hide her annoyance. “I’d already been here a few weeks when O’Reilly showed up. He apparently grew up here.”

“Did he mention this ‘phase one’ to you?”

Maggie was wary. If she said too much, Rickards could decide that she was a liability. That would very likely be deadly for her, and possibly for the children as well.

“No, he said nothing about any phases to me. He talked a bit about why he left, but he was a pretty secretive man.” She glanced down at O’Reilly, lying silently under her hand. The bleeding seemed to have stopped. Hopefully that was because the blood was clotting, and not because he was dead, she thought wryly. She didn’t dare investigate too closely, however, because she needed to maintain her focus on Rickards. His agitation confused her and she was concerned she would say the wrong thing.

Rickards closed his eyes and turned his face toward the ceiling. Maggie watched him standing  there. She briefly considered whether she should try to take advantage of his distraction to either attack or run. Just as she’d wound her courage up to the point where she thought she could take him, Rickards opened his eyes and looked again at her.

“What will you do if I leave you here?”

The question was so unexpected that Maggie just gaped at him, unable to think of a single thing to say.

Rickards, apparently impatient with her dumfounded reaction, repeated more sharply, “What will you do if I leave you here... alive?”

“Live, I guess. Try and figure out how to keep myself fed and clothed.”

“And the children?” he asked.

Maggie realized that it would be foolish to deny the presence of Christina and the others. He was obviously aware that they’d met up with O’Reilly.

“They’ll stay with me, of course. I’ll take care of them.”

Rickards closed his eyes again and breathed deeply. It was apparent that he was fighting an internal battle and Maggie could only hope her life would be on the winning side.

He opened his eyes again and motioned down at O’Reilly. “He probably won’t make it. He appears to be badly injured. What if he dies?”

Maggie choked down the emotions that rose in her throat at the thought of O’Reilly dying. Still a quiver was evident in her voice as she answered Rickards’ question. “We’ll make it. I’ve learned a lot from him about living off the land.”

Rickards seemed to be transfixed by what he saw in Maggie’s face, heard in her voice. For a moment there was silence as he studied her. The moment stretched out and Maggie began to feel uncomfortable under the intense scrutiny. Finally, he spoke again. “I need to know that if I leave you here, you won’t do anything that would threaten the well being of the residents of the APZs.”

Maggie frowned, “What do you mean?”

“I have a duty to protect those people. Outlaws, attacking supply trucks, depriving the residents of things they need. I can’t have that. I need your assurance that you won’t join people like that.”

“You have my promise. All I want is to be left alone.”

Silence stretched out again until Maggie was ready to say or do anything, just to get some type of action. Finally, Rickards came to a decision. Slinging his rifle over his shoulder, he stepped forward and around O’Reilly. He stopped as he was passing Maggie and looked down at her upraised face.

“When I get to the other side of the cave in I’m going to have to let off several shots, make it sound like a gun battle. I’m afraid it may cause another cave in, but I don’t have much of a choice. If I just return to my men, they’ll wonder where the children are, and why I didn’t bring them back with me. I’m going to have to convince the other officers that I ran into the children, they were armed, and I had no choice but to take them out. Do you understand?”

Maggie nodded mutely.

“I’m going back to the APZ, and I’m going to do the best job I can to protect the people in my care. I may not agree with all the decisions the government is making, but I have to believe that they’re making these decisions to try and help the survivors.”

“Will you look into the ‘phase one’ O’Reilly spoke about?”

“I don’t know,” Rickards voice took on a lost, forlorn tone that chilled Maggie more than anything else during this strange encounter. “So help me God, I just don’t know.” He paused for a moment then looked at Maggie one last time. “If you need anything, get word to me at the APZ. Rickards reached into his vest pocket, pulling out a small, handheld electronic device. “This phone is registered to me. You’ll be able to send me messages without alerting the monitoring system. The address you need is in the contacts list.”

Rickards dropped the phone onto O’Reilly’s chest, then turned, walked to the far side of the tunnel, and crawled through the gap into the next cave. A few seconds later a cluster of both rifle and pistol shots rang out, then there was quiet.

The silence stretched out for minutes. Maggie looked down at the still form of O’Reilly in front of her. A flood of emotions washed through her with the violence of a tsunami. She put her forehead on O’Reilly’s chest and wept.