Beyond Armageddon: Book 02 - Empire (63 page)

           
“What do you want, Evan?”

           
“Wow, that’s not a very nice way to greet a friend.”

           
“A friend?” The choice of words surprised Dante.

           
“Yeah. I thought we had, well, after the time we spent in
North Carolina
I thought we had bonded or something.”

           
Jones told Godfrey, “Since then a lot of my people have been forced to whack yours with night sticks and tear gas. Don’t think I don’t know about this candle light vigil thing this weekend. You damn well better not pull any shit outside the estate.”

           
“Hey, easy,” Evan said. “You know, I’m not behind every protest. I can’t be. There’s been too many of them. And you know what? There are more coming. Believe it or not, old Evan Godfrey isn’t the bad guy all the time.”

           
“Yeah, sure, whatever.”

           
“I’ll give you my personal word Dante. My personal word that the vigil will be non-violent. I know the kind of position that would put you in. You’ve been in enough tough positions the last few years. I promise.”

           
Dante cocked his head. “Tough positions? What are you talking about?”

“Well, like Dubois for instance when a bunch of Red Hands took that town out and I.S. got a bloody nose. Like trying to protect all the caravans and trains and shipyards when you don’t have enough manpower. You know a lot of people blame Internal Security. They say you’re not doing your job.”

           
“Well screw them!” Dante said a little loud. “Do they know what we have to work with? Do they know how tough this job is? Resources are—”

           
“Resources are thin, yeah,” Evan agreed.

           
“Right.”

           
“You’re doing the best you can with what you’ve got.”

           
“Hell yeah,” Dante nodded.

           
“You’ve got good people working for you. They’re trying their best.”

           
“Damn straight.”

           
“Things have got to change.”

           
“Shit, you can say that again—” Dante caught himself in mid sentence. He turned toward Evan with anger…breathed…then relaxed. “You know, Evan, you lived around here, right?”

           
“What? You mean
Wilkes-Barre
?
Northeast PA
? Yeah, I moved here before graduate school.”

           
“Back before ‘all this’, this bar wasn’t where we’d see a bunch of guys like you.”

           
“Guys like me? What, college guys?”

           
Dante answered, “White folk.”

           
“Oh,” Evan glanced around. He saw a black bartender but both white and black customers at tables and bar stools.

“Since things went to Hell, I come in here and it doesn’t matter what you look like. You know why? I’ll tell you why. Because when alien monsters start killing everyone, suddenly whether you’re black or white or red doesn’t matter much. Suddenly, you don’t see a redneck or a gang-banger, or some other stereotype, you see just a guy. Because you’re so damned happy that he’s a guy and not a friggin’ blob of Green Pudding that wants to suck your intestines through your nose.”

Dante paused, sipped half his shot, and continued, “So look, all it took was the extermination of ninety-nine percent of humanity, and what have we got? True equality. Real peace between the races. Probably not the way Reverend Jackson wanted to get there, I figure. But still, all the same, we’re there.”

Evan started, “Dante—”

           
“He’s my friend. We’ve been friends since a long time ago. He wasn’t tough like he is now. He didn’t know everything. Hell, he couldn’t find his butt with both hands without my help. Half the time he followed me around like a puppy dog. But back when the world drew big fat ugly lines between people Trevor knew it was wrong.”

“That’s great.”

           
Dante said, “Trevor used to come here, with me. He used to come to this bar. I never saw
you
in here, Evan.”

“I’m here now.”

           
Dante snorted as if to say ‘big deal.’

           
Evan pushed, “You just lied to me, Dante.”

           
Jones, with alcohol in his veins, was not the person you called a liar. He sat straight in his bar stool, cocked his head back, and appeared ready to start a fight.

Evan diffused his anger. “Trevor never came in here with you. Maybe Richard Stone, but Trevor didn’t exist back then. Trevor didn’t exist until there were Stumphides, Ghouls, and Gremmies in the streets. Think about that, Dante. Is that still your friend out there at the estate, or is it someone else?”

           
Jones returned his attention to his drink so fast that it was obvious he had thought about that. Thought about it a lot. Especially since New Winnabow.

           
“He is in over his head, Dante. He may be a good man at heart, but he has taken it upon himself to make a lot of hard decisions. It’s too much for him. He needs help, whether he admits it or not.”

Dante quietly examined his glass.

“You’ve been in here a lot, lately,” Evan said.

“How do you know that, Evan? You spying on me?”

“You weren’t known as a big drinker before, Dante. So that tells me something is bothering this man. I know it has a lot to do with New Winnabow. We were there, together. We got to know those people. Maybe Trevor didn’t think he had any choice. Maybe he just couldn’t see a way out of it. But what about next time, Dante? If the decisions stay on his shoulders alone then there may be a lot more New Winnabows. And guess what, buddy, no amount of drinking is going to chase those ghosts out of your head.”

Dante took a slow sip of the drink.

“I just want you to know,” Evan told him. “I want you to know that you have a friend in me. With everything going down, well, maybe the two of us can keep a lid on some of it. Keep it from getting out of control.”

Dante Jones put the glass down, turned to Godfrey, and said in a wavering voice, “He’s my friend.”

–

           
Trevor kicked the ball across the mansion’s side the yard.
 
JB chased after it, missed with his kick, slipped to the ground, and laughed.

“JB! Come on! Let’s go!” Ashley called from the front side of the mansion where she stood with her father Benjamin Trump as well as two human body guards and two K9s including the Doberman Pinscher named Ajax.

           
JB scrambled to his feet, kicked the ball away, and then ran toward his mother. Trevor joined them.

           
“You guys going in to town?” He asked Ashley.

           
“No, security thinks we shouldn’t,” she said. “At least not until things die down.”

“My boy can’t even go in town now?”
           
“It will blow over,” she assured, although her assurance sounded hollow.

JB grabbed his dad’s legs in a hug.

           
“We’re going to Joe’s Pizza, father,” he said. “They have an air hockey game in there! Me and grandpa are going to play.”

           
Trevor knelt down to his son’s level.

           
“I bet you’re pretty good at it.”

           
“Nah, I’m not so hot.”

           
Trevor looked into the eyes of his boy. Really
looked.

           
What was in there? What mystery to all of this was hidden behind those eyes?

           
Maybe…no, all he saw was a happy little boy. For now, maybe that was all there really was.

           
“Hey, I love you, buddy,” Trevor put his hand on his son’s cheek.

           
JB grew very serious. “I love you, too, daddy.”

           
That stunned both Ashley and Trevor. They gaped at one another as JB ran to his grandfather.

She said, “Being a parent is always full of surprises.”

           
“I suppose so,” he admitted as he stood again.

“We’ll be back later,” Ashley said and she followed her son and the security detail as they headed to an SUV idling in the driveway.

           
Trevor needed something to do now. An idea came to mind…

           
…BAM! BAM! BAM!

Shots from the Beretta M9 semi-automatic pistol slapped the air around the estate’s shooting range like firecrackers.

           
Trevor expended the last of that clip, ejected the magazine, and reloaded it from a box of bullets. Tyr yapped to alert Trevor to company.

           
Gordon Knox approached, holding a sheet of paper. He wore a bomber jacket in light of the lowering temperatures. The weather promised to get much colder in the days ahead.

Trevor removed his ear guards but continued to load bullets into the clip; each one harder to slip in as the spring inside the magazine grew more taut.

           
“Where’s the family?” Knox asked.

           
“Just left, went to dinner,” Trevor said.

           
“Oh.”

           
“What is it Gordon? What have you got for me? More protests in
Scranton
? Did they raid a food distribution center in
Hagerstown
again? Let me guess, this is full-fledged rebellion now.”

           
Gordon laughed, “Nothing of the sort, Trevor. I wouldn’t let some scattered protests get you upset. It was bound to happen sooner or later.”

Trevor smacked the reloaded clip into the pistol.

“Maybe I should just sic the canines on them.”

           
“Well, I think my timing couldn’t be better,” Gordon said.

           
“What does that mean?”

“Let’s just say, it strikes me that you need this bit of news right now.”

“Okay then, spit it out.”

“My people intercepted a message sent from
Atlanta
to
Columbia
before we captured the city. The Hivvan commander in
Columbia
never got the message because we took him out with a bunker buster before it got to him. We’ve finally translated it.”

           
Trevor turned his head and waited.

           
Knox told him, “It’s a directive from primary headquarters in
Atlanta
to the commander of
Columbia
. It tells that commander that after their heavy losses in
North Carolina
, the high command had decided to evacuate
Columbia
and consolidate defensive lines using the lakes and rivers on the
South Carolina
,
Georgia
border. It appears they were not planning a counter-attack on
Raleigh
after all.”

           
“Oh,” Trevor shivered. “So you’re telling me…you’re telling me they were going to evacuate
Columbia
, anyway? So you’re telling me…Jesus Christ…you’re telling me that it was for nothing? That…that I killed all those people for—?”

           
“That’s not the entire message.”

           
Trevor bowed his head.

           
Knox told him the rest.

           
“The commander in
Columbia
was ordered to begin eradication of all human slaves in custody and to use the most expeditious means.”

           
Stone raised his head again. His eyes stared off at something unseen.

           
“Trevor,” Gordon told him. “If you hadn’t pushed through New Winnabow, the commander at
Columbia
would have received this message. If you had gone another way or pulled back, those ten thousand people in
Columbia
would have been slaughtered. You did the right thing.”

           
Trevor chuckled but not in good humor. “The right thing, Gordon?”

           
“Yes,” Knox answered. “How many casualties at New Winnabow? One hundred?”

           
The answer lived at the tip of Trevor’s tongue, “One hundred and twenty two.”

           
“Against ten thousand saved? Not a bad price to pay.”

           
Stone cocked the slide on his pistol, chambering a new round.

           
“What a bargain…” Trevor echoed.