Redaction: The Meltdown Part II (31 page)

She owed David that.

She owed Lister and the rest that promise. The military could have taken over at any time, and they hadn’t.

Lister stroked his chin. Silent communication passed between the officers.

She felt the weight of her promise and their judgment press down on her. Words in her defense bubbled through her. She clamped her lips together. The foundation of trust had to be laid on solid bedrock. They didn’t know it, but life in the mines would be where the real treachery began.

This was the easy part.

Lister looked at David, jerking his head in her direction.

A muscle ticked in his jaw. “So if your niece dies, you’re going to abandon her body in a shallow grave and go live a long happy life with us?”

She flinched at the harsh words, knowing they were part of the test. “I don’t know about the happy part, but, yes, I’ll die in Colorado.”

Color washed up David’s cheeks.

Mavis offered him no comfort. Grief over losing her husband and son within months of each other had turned her into a raving bitch. She’d probably drive him away, if her words about his divided loyalties didn’t shatter their fragile relationship. Her attention skittered away from his and focused on Lister. “Any more questions?”

“Nope.” The general held out his hand. “Welcome to the survivor’s club, Doc.”

She slid her hand into his, felt the large callus on his trigger finger. “Now let’s bag some rabid wolves. Sally, is there a Dirk Benedict on those trucks?”

“Yes, Ma’am.” The Lieutenant flashed the obese man’s picture at them.

Mavis wrote Trent and Dirk’s name on the board, far away from Sunnie’s. “What is his occupation?”

The lieutenant frowned down at her tablet. “He was a mechanic until an accident put him on workman’s comp.”

“Son of a bitch!” Lister crumpled his empty coffee. “That’s our saboteur.”

Ah, they’re finally going to let her in on the big secret. “What did he sabotage?”

After a nod from Lister, David filled her in. “The brake lines of one of the trucks.”

Mavis set her hand over her chest, writing on her chin with the marker. “Is anyone injured?”

Lister’s eyes narrowed.

She glared at him. She promised to help them, not to stop worrying about her niece.

“They were able to stop using the bumper of Sunnie’s truck. No injuries reported.” David held up his hands. “Sunnie called after it happened and she never said she was hurt, did she?”

“No.” But the medic might have told her not to. Damn, she hated knowing they lied to her. “Any more sabotage?”

“Robertson’s truck suffered two flat tires. He conveniently ran over boards with nails.” David held up two fingers. “Two, only on the passenger’s side and all but one of the comms have dead batteries.”

“Let me guess, the two damaged trucks were the last in the convoy.” Separating the civilians from the military would make it easier to take control. “Were the people rearranged?”

“Yes and yes.”

Very clever. She chewed on the marker’s cap. “Sally, bring up the photos of all the men between forty and fifty on those trucks.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“What are you thinking, Doc?”

The same thing the bastard was, she hoped. “Trent would want more than one henchman and I snapped four men at the funeral that had Dirk’s thumbs up. What do you want to bet, they’re together?”

“I don’t like to lose.” Using his teeth, Lister ripped open the plastic encasing his fork.

“It’s ready, Ma’am.” Sally handed her the tablet.

After handing off her pen, Mavis flicked the pages, one after the other. Ten men. Twelve. Frustration shredded her insides. Come on. They had to be here. Lucky number thirteen. Hooked nose and beady, close-set eyes. “Gary Everett.” His occupation surprised her. One would think Trent would pick his friends more closely. “Ex-con. Drug dealing.” She smiled as she scanned Gary’s rap sheet. “And a piece of good news, he’s ratted out cronies before.”

Lister shook a speared sausage at her. “So we have a wedge.”

That better not be
her
sausage breakfast.

David set an MRE by her cold coffee and opened her wheat bread.

With her free hand, she dipped the corner into the gravy and tossed it into her mouth. Her finger left streak marks across the screen. Numbers fourteen and fifteen showed two brothers from Alabama caught in Phoenix during the Redaction. They’d have an axe to grind for keeping them from their loved ones. “Add Ernest and Robert E Pyle. Both are long haul truckers.”

She watched David’s face, saw his eyes widen when the implication sunk in. “My men will be on guard once they realize they’re cut off from the platoon.”

If they have time to realize it. Trent may not want to wait to replace the soldiers with his new chauffeurs.

She flicked through more pictures. Come on. Where was the last? Two flew by and she back-tracked. A man in a suit stared back at her. Thin lipped, flat black eyes and crooked nose. Black chest hair carried a gold crucifix above the first button of his white dress shirt and loose tie. “Jake Turner.”

This was a man used to being in charge but he’d been the first recruit.

Perhaps Trent had his own wolf. She scanned his vitals and smiled. “Guess what gentlemen. We’ve just found Trent Powers’ defense lawyer.”

“Why try him at all? We know he’s guilty.” Lister stabbed another sausage chunk. “Let’s just kill the bastard.”

She handed the tablet back to Sally. “In case you hadn’t noticed civilians outnumber servicemen and that gap is only going to widen. If we go around shooting people, no matter how much they deserve it, then we’re dead. We can’t fight for survival and each other.”

Lister shook his bread at her. “I don’t want the bastard getting off on a technicality either.”

“Oh he won’t, I promise you that.” She broke her bread into pieces and dropped them into the sausage gravy, stirring it with her fork. “Find me a civilian lawyer and thirty potential jurors, cross-reference their names with anyone who lost a loved one to the lawlessness that occurred at the beginning of the Redaction.”

“Damn, Doc,” awe-tinged Lister’s voice, “that’s brilliant and sneaky.”

If she couldn’t get a conviction with a stacked jury, then she’d find another means. One way or another, she’d get those victims justice.

Chapter Twenty-Five

David stuffed the last piece of cake in his mouth, as Mavis reached the door. The food settled like lead shot in his gut. Damn Lister. The Marine had tossed him under the bus by telling Mavis about the sabotage.

Something David himself had been forced to swear to keep to himself.

And then she’d looked at him.

And he’d spied the pain in her hazel eyes.

He tossed his garbage on the tray. The lance-corporal can clean up this mess by himself. David had damage control of his own to do. Without asking permission, David strode to the door.

Lister intercepted him, picking his teeth with the folded edge of a bag. “Good luck.”

David was surprised it wasn’t the quill from a canary, the conniving bastard. “Thank you, Sir.”

He stepped into the morning light. To his right, people shuffled in the pearly dawn. Overhead, night fled before the sun, but the storm clouds to the north advanced. That wasn’t the only bad weather.

On his left, Mavis marched toward the river. Pausing, she turned and arched an eyebrow, daring him.

David squared his shoulders and followed. His men were in harm’s way, her niece was at risk and a pecker head threatened to undermine everything they’d hoped to build but he’d never ignore a dare.

As soon as he reached her side, she began to walk. “I take it you’re ready to talk.”

He stumbled over a step. Damn. Nothing good ever began when a woman wanted to talk. He would know. Twenty-six women ended their relationship with a variation of those words.

Would telling her he was ordered to withhold information from her keep her by his side?

Maybe.

“I don’t have anything to say.” He wouldn’t defend his actions, or his allegiance. His men were his family. If she couldn’t understand that… “But I figured you did.”

“Yes.” She stopped by a shrub, ran her fingers through the grayish leaves. With a sigh, she faced him. “I’m glad you don’t have anything to say, because I want to get this out.”

David clasped his hands behind his back. Why had he hoped she’d understand? Because of Sunnie? Despite her announcement, she’d fight harder to keep everyone alive with her niece by her side than with Sunnie buried in a roadside grave.

And his words definitely hadn’t helped his cause.

“Today tested your loyalties and I came out the loser.” She grimaced and wrapped her arms around her waist. Her attention slipped off him. “I detest losing.”

Fuck. Fuck.
Fuck!
“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Her lips quirked. Slowly, she raised her gaze until their eyes locked. “I was thinking the same thing.”

Huh? She was apologizing to him?

“What we have is too new and untested to withstand these trails.”

He curled his free hand into a fist. Cue the break-up music. He dug his heels into the ground.

“So I release you.”

And now he just had to wait for the end credits to roll and the curtain to fall. Tonight, he’d find a cold cot to climb into. Yay him.

“You don’t owe me a professional loyalty, just personal one.”

The music in his head screamed to a stop. “What?”

This was the weirdest break-up he’d been through.

“Don’t misunderstand me, I won’t share you with another woman.” She stepped closer and rested her hands against his chest. “I just don’t expect you to put me ahead of the needs of your men or the military.”

David stepped back, swaying a little on his feet. His thoughts chased round and round inside his skull. “Maybe you better repeat that.”

Because he couldn’t have heard what he thought he did.

“Your men and the service need you more than I do right now.” She closed the gap between them once again but this time she didn’t touch him. “I won’t ask you to choose. To tell me every little thing. I just ask that when the time comes,
if
the time comes when I…”

She inhaled deeply.

David caught her hands, threaded his fingers through hers. He’d be there when she needed him. Always, no matter what happened between them. She’d gotten the loyalty part right. “Let’s just take it one day at a time.”

She smiled and rested her head against his chest. “You know I’m only doing this because you keep me warm.”

“Whatever you have to tell yourself.” He set his chin on the top of her head and watched as a bird swooped out of the sky toward the river. Wait a minute. If he was allowed to keep secrets from her, was she keeping secrets from him?

Chapter Twenty-Six

Papa Rose kicked the length of two by four wedged into the wheel, opening and closing the irrigation gate. Mud oozed around his boots and dripped down his backside. “Move.” Kick. “Your.” Kick. “Ass.” Kick. Kick.

His knee throbbed with each impact. Sweat beaded his forehead; a frigid breeze whisked it away.

“You do know that it doesn’t have an ass.” Falcon squished through the mud on the other side of the white metal gate. A ball bearing rattled around the spray can in his hand before he sprayed the WD40 on the rusted nut holding the wheel.

“Unlike you.” Brainiac stopped playing with the wires of the generator and perched on the edge of the truck bed. The logo of Palo Verde Generating Station decorated the white door. Of all the elements in the logo, only the orange mountains and golden sun and reactor dome would remain. The green saguaro would die from the radiation as would the rest of the vegetation.

And forget using the farmlands for the next hundred thousand years or so.

The squid smiled. “You should have seen your face when you went down.”

Papa Rose rubbed the dried mud off his hands. Beside the ditch stretched a field. Furrows divided the dark soil into neat rows. That crop would never grow. “Remind me again, why you’re not helping to open and close these stupid gates?”

“Because I have to make sure the generators are wired correctly to power the wells.” Brainiac shook the open edge of a heavy duty cord at him. Red, white, black and green coated copper wires bristled from the ends. “It’s a delicate procedure. If we blow this, Doc won’t get three more days.”

Falcon stopped his spraying. The painted metal glistened in the morning sun. “Try it again.”

Shaking off his thoughts, Papa Rose slammed his boot against the wood. Metal screamed. Hallelujah! It budged. Bracing his feet against the wall of the ditch, he leaned against the two by four. Splinters bit into his palm and he sunk deeper into the green slime at the bottom of the ditch.

The damn thing didn’t move.

He glared at Falcon. “Wanna give me a hand?”

“Nope.” The former Green Beret grinned. He carefully set the spray can on the dirt road running parallel to the ditch. “But I will, we’re running out of time and you’re taking forever.”

“Asshole.”

After blowing him an air kiss, Falcon rested his hands on the other end of the plank, pushing in the same direction. The wheel squeaked as it turned inch by inch.

Brainiac took out a knife and scored the plastic covering the wires in his hand. “Oh we have plenty of time now. The water from the first well has already made it down to the ponds. Glen is routing the water to the pools.”

“Who is Glen?” Papa Rose’s knees banged against the metal gate. Pain burned across his back as he continued to push with his upper body. Christ Jesus, this was getting old.

“The nuclear tech.” Brainiac bit the tip of the green plastic and pulled, skinning the wire. “I should probably check on him. He didn’t sound too good.”

“We’re lucky he’s lasted this long.” Releasing his plank, Papa Rose turned in the ditch and grabbed the one Falcon had been pushing. Bracing his foot in the muddy side, he pulled.

“He’s been sick nearly thirty hours, right?” Mimicking his actions, Falcon manhandled the wood toward his chest.