“I feel very outlawish,” she admitted as they left the range and returned to the SUV.
“Outlawish?” Zed teased.
“You know what I mean. Now where to?”
“The lab,” the men said in unison.
Leta knew protesting would do no good, so she focused on the landscape as Uncle drove them. Everything here was brown and dead-looking, patches of slushy snow still hiding out in deeply shaded areas from the previous winter storm to blow through. Another was due in late tomorrow, and the team would likely have to cut their work day short, or stay overnight at the lab to wait out the weather.
“You’ve never been outside of Florida?” Zed asked.
“Nope. Couldn’t afford it. State doesn’t pay to send orphaned kids on vacations to the Grand Canyon.”
“That some place you’d like to see?” Uncle asked.
“One day, yeah. Lots of places I’ve read about that I’d like to see here in the US. Doesn’t even count places elsewhere, except that with the state of the world I’m sure I’ll never see any of them. Not sure I want to travel to see them until the all-clear is sounded about Kite.”
“You know,” Uncle said. “Once we’re set loose, we could get an RV and tour the US.”
She stared at him over the seat. Sitting on the passenger side behind Zed, she had an unobstructed view of the side of Uncle’s head.
The expression he wore was undecipherable.
“You serious?”
“Yeah,” Zed said. “Completely.”
Her heart raced. “What about my job?”
Zed turned his head to the side, toward her. “That’s up to you. When we’re finally free, we won’t need to work for a long time, if ever. Between what we’ve got saved up and the bonuses we’ll get for, oh, saving the damn planet, we’ll be set.”
“You barely know me,” she said. “How can you even be sure you’ll want to spend time with me?”
“We can say the same thing,” Uncle countered. “We’re not going to be stupid and say yep, this is for life, when none of us even know what tomorrow will hold. For now, I’m good with thinking about things the three of us can look forward to in the future should good luck hold out.”
She thought about it some more. “I always wanted to see Mt. St. Helens.”
“We could do that, too,” Uncle said. “It’s pretty country out there.”
The hills here in Georgia were different than she was used to. While parts of Florida’s interior central and northern sections were somewhat hilly, this landscape made Florida look flat by comparison.
“I’d like to see Yellowstone.”
“I would, too,” Zed said. “I’ve never been there.”
“Does it make me a shallow person to ignore parts of the world dying off and planning a vacation with two guys I just met?”
“No, it makes you human.” Uncle stopped for a light and glanced back at her. “Person has to have a goal they’re looking forward to, something to keep them going. Otherwise, it’s easier to lay down and die. I don’t feel like doing that, so I’ll keep some goals in mind.”
She nodded.
And since the conversation had taken a decidedly grim turn, she opted to lighten it. “Going to go for your college degree, too? Once this is over?” she asked Uncle.
“Maybe. Depends.”
“On what?”
“On what we’re doing. Might be having too much fun traveling.”
Zed let out a chuckle. “Or doing other things when we’re not traveling. I’m tired of not having a private life and personal time.”
The men fist-bumped.
She considered that. She was used to going to work, long hours, yes, but her time was just that—hers. “You know, don’t let me make all the plans, here.”
“I think traveling is a great idea,” Uncle said. He looked at Zed.
“Same here.”
“Why do I get the feeling you’re just humoring me?” she asked.
This time, Zed turned so he could meet her gaze over the back of the seat. He wore a smile. “Because we’ve lived through some shit lately,” he said. “I’ll take orders from a gorgeous, blue-eyed doctor over Uncle Sam any day of the week, no matter what it is I’m ordered to do.”
“Ditto,” Uncle chimed in.
They fist-bumped again.
“And we’re here.” Uncle turned the SUV into a secure parking garage, swiping a badge that allowed the gate’s arm to swing up and admit them.
“I don’t have an ID,” she said.
“You will,” Uncle told her as he found a parking spot. “We sort of have an in with the head of security.”
Chapter Sixteen
Saturday morning, Jerald thought about leaving St. Louis and surprising Hannibal in Vermont, but he didn’t have an excuse adequate enough to keep the man’s suspicion at bay.
He also didn’t like that Hannibal had called a spur-of-the-moment sermon together for the kids in the compound, one he wanted a film crew to broadcast live on the network, including following him around as he had the kids show him their agriculture projects on the compound’s roof.
Almost like he wanted there to be no doubt as to his whereabouts. Anyone tuned in to the network on their TV, or on the live feed on the Internet—or one of the hundreds of people gathered around him—could testify that they saw Hannibal Silo right there in Vermont. He was doing a damned good acting job, too, walking slow, hunched over, looking weak and frail.
The perfect act. A harmless old preacher.
What are you up to, old man?
All he could do was watch the feed himself. No sign of a handler, other than the network’s producer who was there already to help film the scheduled Sunday and Monday sermons.
Of course Jerald had already checked Hannibal’s call records.
Nothing.
And no unusual account activity he could spot from the bank accounts Hannibal frequently used for non-church stuff.
Unless the man had other accounts. And perhaps a burner cell phone.
Jerald threw his head back and scrubbed at his face with his hands. He had no clue what the hell he was doing anymore. Top of his list—kill Hannibal Silo. At this point, even if Mary didn’t come back, the bane of his existence would no longer matter. He could get the church away from all this bullshit and get the general’s attention off them, finally.
He wouldn’t have to worry about Hannibal trying to frame him for everything.
Because right now, that was his number one worry. He’d thought he was safe for years, when all he did was make himself the easy target. Of course he’d never thought Hannibal would sink to these insane depths. Who would think that?
Unfortunately it meant he’d played right into the wily preacher’s hands.
Grabbing his phone, he pulled up a password-protected PDF file with a list of phone numbers. Even the list was scrambled, his own secret code no one else would easily be able to figure out.
From that list he made a phone call on a burner cell. It went to voice mail.
As did the second call to a different number.
And the third.
Dammit.
Those were all deeply rooted contacts he’d carefully cultivated over the years.
If they weren’t answering their phones…
How far did General Arliss’ reach extend after all?
He returned his focus to the TV just in time to catch a glimpse of Hannibal staring straight into the camera before focusing on the young boy talking to him and explaining tomatoes or some shit. As if looking right at him. And he spotted something else in the man’s expression.
A hint of glee, as if he were awaiting a present.
Maybe I’m not the one most in danger after all.
“What did you set in motion, Hannibal?” he softly asked the TV screen.
* * * *
Bubba stared at his computer screen. “Little to the left. Sorry, to your right.”
Kant adjusted the sat-linked laptop so t
he camera showed the interior of the box truck’s cargo area. They’d lined the walls and floors with thick plastic sheeting.
“That’s better.”
“Can you hear all right?” Kant asked.
“Yep. Go ahead and get started. We’re wasting time.”
Kant was dressed in a plastic protective suit, head to toe, as was Dark.
On the floor lay Darwin Goldfinch. At least the man had made it easy on them. He’d been the one to rent the truck in the first place, had driven it to his own house bright and early Saturday morning.
So when Kant and Dark tasered him and tossed him in the back, they’d driven it off again, easy-peasy.
It looked like Goldfinch had planned on moving out in a hurry, from the number of the boxes and plastic tubs lined up in his living room and ready to load. The fact that they’d followed him around all day Friday as he’d taken care of things, like visiting a bank, renting a storage unit, then spending over an hour at a travel agency, followed by a real estate agent—things that stood out in their minds as pretty certain clues the man was looking to leave for good.
Now they were parked in the woods in the middle of nowhere, meaning no one would be able to hear the man scream.
Except for the three of them.
Bubba had cleared them full go from the moment they realized Goldfinch was preparing to bug out. That such an established man, with a relatively cushy government job that was nearly impossible to get fired from at his stage of his career, was ready to boogie meant only one thing.
He’d flipped a switch on something that would run him over if he didn’t get out of the way in a hurry.
And Kant and Dark suspected that something had to do with the Reverend Hannibal Silo.
“You know how this works,” Bubba said. “They already checked you for a cyanide capsule, so you ain’t taking no easy way out. Start talking, and they’ll po-clo you quick.”
“Aww,” Kant said. “I wanted to crucify him.”
The man lay naked and shivering on the plastic sheeting underneath him. His hands had been secured behind him with plastic zip-ties. “I thought you fucking died, Carter.”
“Yeah? So did a lot of people.” Bubba nodded to Dark, who kicked Goldfinch in the nuts.
The man let out a pained grunt.
“That’s for not trying to extract our team when you had intel we’d been compromised, asshole,” Bubba said. “Just be thankful I’m not there right now, or you’d be chewing on them already. What’d Silo hire you for?”
“You think I’m going to tell you? Fuck you. I’m dead either way.”
“Yeah, and how you die is what matters. I mean, really? You want to spend your last couple of hours being flayed alive?”
Kant and Dark exchanged glances before looking at the computer. “I’m good with doing that,” Kant said.
“Me, too,” Dark said.
“Most fun I’ve had in a while,” Kant said.
“I haven’t flayed anyone in a few years,” Dark said. “I think I remember the basics.”
“Fuck you,” Goldfinch gasped.
Bubba sat back. “Bravado? Fucking really? Okay. Hard way it is. You guys got the bolt cutters?”
Kant walked toward the back of the truck, where the laptop was sitting on the floor, and picked up something from beyond the camera’s field of vision.
Then he headed back toward Goldfinch, the bolt cutters in his hand.
“Start with his toes,” Bubba said.
He gave Goldfinch credit. The guy lasted through four of them, spread between both feet, before he started talking.
CIA fuck wasn’t nearly as stone-cold as he thought he was, or he once was.
Once they got him talking, he wouldn’t fucking shut up as shock and adrenaline took over.
And Bubba got it all on video, including a bunch of shit he hadn’t even been asking about, but which he was sure Arliss would find very interesting.
Especially since it implicated the President in several very messy international scandals.
Well, technically some of those scandals were moot at this point due to the fact that the other countries involved no longer effectively existed anywhere other than within the halls of the UN and on maps and globes.
Decisions, decisions.
Goldfinch knew he was going to die and was talking, trying to prolong the inevitable, hoping to bargain or negotiate his survival. A tactic Bubba had seen countless others use. Hell, it was something they taught them in training.
Which meant he was only giving them the lowest-level crap.
He sent a quick encrypted text to Arliss before hitting mute on his computer and calling Papa.
“Yeah?”
“Pull the research team from the CDC lab. ASAP. Get them back to the safe house, and get all personnel up there brought in. Stay frosty. I’ll call you back in a few.”
He unmuted the computer, where Goldfinch was now rambling about some fifteen-year-old coup attempt he’d helped orchestrate in some shit-stained republic in western Africa.
“Get to the tl;dr,” Bubba ordered. “Otherwise, you’re dead right now.”
“The President…she was the one who ordered Barstow. It wasn’t an accident.”
Bubba snorted. “That’s old news, buddy. That’s the best you got?”
Goldfinch’s eyes widened.
The tell, Bubba knew, that it had been the best he had. The true headline.
“Do it,” Mike said.
Goldfinch struggled as Dark held him down while Kant pushed the po-clo.
It was over in less than a minute.
“Well, that was disappointing,” Dark said as he sat back. “I was promised a party.”
“There’s one coming, gentlemen,” Bubba grimly said. “Clear out of there.”
“What about him?”
“Torch it. Go back to his house, search it, and torch it, too.”
“Roger roger.”
Kant walked over to the laptop, leaning in to pick it up, then holding it up so he could smile into the camera. “Did I say thank you? I would have had to spend the weekend helping my wife and daughter-in-law pick out wedding shit for my granddaughter’s wedding. I love them all, but geez, there’s only so much torture a man can endure! I’m payin’ for the damn wedding. Isn’t that enough?”
Bubba smiled at him. “Thanks for taking one for the team.”
Kant’s laughter abruptly cut off as the other man ended the connection.
After shifting positions in his chair, Bubba called Papa back and gave him a longer version. As soon as he hung up with Papa, Bubba called Arliss.
“Well?” the general grimly asked.
“Done. And here’s what we know.”
When he finished, Arliss let out a muttered string of epithets. “I’ll move another SOTIF team into position in Atlanta.”
“Won’t matter. I’ll have them out of Atlanta by tomorrow at the latest.”
“Where you sending them?”
“Where we discussed. To our friends in the north. They’re the only ones at this point we can count on. The team is so close, we can’t let them fail.”
“Pull them all in, then. Everyone you’ve got. Time to shut them all down. I’ll dispatch a team to Vermont.”
“We can’t take Silo out yet.”
“Why the hell not?”
Bubba rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “If we take Silo out now, this close to Atlanta, it’ll look like it’s connected.”
“It is connected.”
“We can’t let the public or the press think that. That buys into every last crazy-assed conspiracy theory out there, and it’s counterproductive. Not to mention it’s just plain wrong. You’re just angry right now.”
“Damn right I’m angry!”
“New Year’s,” Bubba said. “We’ll have Mary Silo’s trust by then. Her help. And we should have a vaccine by then. For now, it’s business as usual. Silo wanted it to look like an insurgent group did this? That’s exactly what we?
??ll say. I’ll pull some old mop-up photos from the files and we’ll use those to release to the press. Use this to our advantage. The press will eat it up, that the government is not only protecting its smartest against the evil religious wackadoodle terrorists, but are still dedicated to not letting anything stop them. And it gives us time to finalize our other plans and set them into motion.”
Arliss finally chuckled. “You learned well, didn’t you?”
“I learned from the best, sir.”
“Okay. Business as usual.”
“We’ve cleaned house enough. I know Plan B is secure for our purposes. Just blank-check everything between here and there and contact your friend that he’s going to have an inbound load of precious cargo in the next forty-eight to seventy-two.”
“That long?”
“They can’t just bug-out without some prep down south. With…the middleman no longer in the picture, it would take longer than that for Silo to formulate another plan. This was likely his last, best chance.”
“New Year’s, huh?”
“Can you think of a better way to ring it in?”
Arliss laughed. “Keep me posted.”
“Ditto.” Bubba ended the call and set the cell phone on the counter. He’d have to bug-out soon, too. Get everyone moved to safety who needed to be transferred out.
The threat was almost over, but unfortunately he knew from experience it was the most desperate people, the ones who had nothing left to lose, who were the most likely to randomly strike out.
Silo had already done some pretty batshit stuff.
While this was dangerous and irritating, what Silo didn’t know was that Goldfinch had seriously underestimated the situation. He’d had no idea there were close to three dozen SOTIF troops at the Atlanta CDC facility.
Hell, not even the President knew about the existence of the SOTIF units guarding the hospital.
It had been a literal suicide mission Mike could spin and use to further their own narrative against Silo, when the time was right.
Now it was time to set the final series of gears in motion to completely obliterate Silo for good. For the sake of domestic peace, certain illusions had to be preserved for the citizens.
Attacking a well-known preacher would not go over well with anyone, regardless of what evidence they provided. Silo’s downfall had to look like either he took his own life, or a natural progression of events due to the evidence Ax was releasing, or something else that could not be tied back to the government.