The Remaining: Refugees (54 page)

“I know you already know about the
other
two guys,” Tomlin said.
“
They weren’t hardcore killers or anything, but they were no slouches either, so count yourself lucky they didn’t get you. Both designated marksman out of the 82
^nd
. But they aren’t the only ones out for you.”

Lee stared,
felt something stir in the
pit of his stomach.

Tomlin took his silence as an invitation to continue. “There’s someone else, at least one other. And I think they’re on the inside, Lee. I don’t know whether they’re close, or just close enough to feed intelligence, but that’s how those two boys knew where to set up and wait for you.”

“You saying I have a mole?”
Lee’s nose wrinkled a bit, like he’d smelled something foul.

“Mole. Informant. Spy. Whatever you want to call it, Lee. Why do you think they knew that you were heading to Sanford that day? How do you think they knew where and when to set up to catch you before you got to your bunker? Because someone was feeding them intel from the inside.”

Lee canted his head. “Interesting. The way I saw it, whoever was controlling this little operation to kill me had to have knowledge of
where
my bunker was, not just when I planned to go there. And that’s information that only I have. But maybe another coordinator would know.”

Tomlin smiled savagely. “Like me, right?”

“Yes. Like you.”

“Fuck you, Lee.” He lurched up onto his knees. “You and I both know that’s not true!”

Lee had to suddenly restrain an urge for violence. “Yeah, well, apparently I’m kinda out of the loop these days. So why don’t you tell me what the fucking truth is?”

“You
are
out of the loop!” Tomlin nearly yelled it. “That’s where all this shit started from!”

Lee held up a hand, his lips curling in a snarl. “Before I listen to anymore of your bullshit, just answer one question for me. Did you come here to kill me?”

That one froze him.

Tomlin lowered his chin slightly, then sank back onto his heels.

A moment stretched by, and Lee arched his eyebrows, looking for an answer.

“Yes.” Tomlin shook his he
ad. “That was the original plan
.”

Lee crossed quickly, knocking over the lamp and causing the light to slant up at them and cast their faces in strange shadows. He grabbed Tomlin by the collar. “The original plan was to work together! The original plan
was to save what we could and reestablish some sort of government! Why aren’t we sticking to
that
plan, Brian? What happened to
that
plan?”

“Things change,” Tomlin said bitterly.

Lee shoved him to the ground and shook his head in disgust. “I’m done.”

Tomlin squirmed into his side. “Lee! Wait! You have to let me finish!”

But Lee had already turned his back on him. He pushed open the two doors and stepped out into the gravel lot of Camp Ryder. He turned back around, one hand on each of the double doors, his face just a shadow in the darkness. “I don’t have to let you do shit, Brian. I’ll deal with you later.”

Lee slammed the doors on Tomlin’s protests, but not before he could hear the other captain screaming at him, not in anger, but in what appeared to be a sincere warning: “Watch your back, Lee! Watch your back!”

CHAPTER 25:
…AND NEW ENEMIES

It felt like tunnel vision, walking through Camp Ryder, the closed and locked shipping container behind him. The only thing visible was what lay directly ahead of him.
Each question was a dropping anvil,
smashing into that ice-cold, frozen surface over his mind and causing hair-line cracks, weaknesses to be exploited when he least expected it, fissures to make him lose control.

His breathing came in rhythm with his rapid stride. He wasn’t quite sure where he was going. Simply escaping that shipping container, escaping whatever else Tomlin had up his sleeve, whatever other lies he had to spew out of his mouth. He rounded the corner of the Camp Ryder
building—i
t was as good a destination as any.

But as he came around to the front of the building he could hear the voices filtering out, cheerful in each other’s company.

He did not want to be with these people.

He did not want to put on a face for them, to make them believe
everything
was okay.

H
e did not want to endure their concern for him if that face faltered.

He wanted to be left alone.

Standing there at the front of the building, still swimming silently in the shadows, he stared at the entrance to the Camp Ryder building, and the banner that was hung there three months ago by Harper. A symbol of what had been, and what could be again. Weather had turned the midnight blue to gray twilight, the red had become blanched, and the white was dingy at the tattered edges where hundreds of hands reached up to touch it every day, to honor it in their own way, to try to remember what the fight was all about.

The flag stirred only slightly in the breeze.

Where is the line between determination and stupidity?

He slumped against the cold concrete wall, felt it leach the warmth from him, pulling it through the fibers of hi
s
parka
. Every bit of him
felt
heavy like cast iron
, his feet like they were encased in concrete. His rifle dangled loosely from his hands, an anchor weighing him down and he got the very real sensation that, like any heavy, immobile object, if he were to stand there long enough, he would sink into the ground and the earth would swallow him up.

Still staring at the flag, he thought,
I’ve given you everything. When is it going to be enough? When have I given enough that I can just be left the fuck alone?

He’d fought the fight. He’d run the race.

But the enemies never stopped coming, and the race had no finish line.

He’d spent much of his adult life considering himself a sheepdog of sorts; a creature that lived to confront the wolf, that protected the sheep because doing so was instinctive for him. But maybe he wasn’t a sheepdog anymore. Maybe that was a younger man’s game.

Perhaps
now
he was just a tired mutt with a scarred muzzle and a limp in his leg that had battled his fair share of beasts and rescued as many sheep as he could manage. Perhaps he didn’t fight nowadays for the same reasons he did a decade ago. Maybe now he only hobbled out to confront that threat because it was the only way he could buy himself some peace and quiet. Maybe all he wanted was a place in the sun to lie down and rest, and to be left alone, like any old dog that wishes to while away his days, lying on the front porch with his eye
s
half-lidded in the sunlight.

He closed his eyes and imagined himself at peace.

And he thought,
Maybe th
at’s worth one more fight.

He opened his eyes again and there in the forefront of his vision was the flag. He tried to dig deep and feel that pride that he had once felt, and perhaps it was there, buried beneath the exhaustion and the resignation.

The only easy day was yesterday
, he thought.
Because yesterday, at least I knew whose side I was on.

***

Devon
returned
from Smithfield
in
Harper’s
pickup truck, bearing Jake’s body. He rode by himself and no one asked
him why he had made the drive alone
, and he did not offer an explanation.
They carried
Jake’s and Zack’s
bodies to a corner of the compound where crudely made cro
sses marked the graves of fourteen
others, and the two men
were interred
by firelight. When they were finished, no words were spoken, because all the words of loss and death had already been said, and to s
ay them now only smarted like a re
open
ed
wound.

A somber procession made their way into the Camp Ryder building, and upstairs to gather in the office and
discuss the coming days.
N
early thirty of them crammed into the tight space—standing room only. The desk and the chairs had been pushed back against the walls and the door to the office remained open because one or two people stood in the frame of it, peering in over the heads of the others. Their attention was focused on Lee, Harper, and Bus, who stood with their backs to the map of North Carolina and faced the crowded room of volunteers.

Lee waited until the murmur of conversation lulled. His eyes scanned the faces before him as he spoke. “I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you. You knew what I was asking of you, you knew the risks that were involved, and you volunteered anyway. There is nothing in this world that has any meaning or value without people such as yourself that are willing to put themselves in harm’s way to try to ensure that other people have a future. Without that future, without that probability of survival, everything loses its meaning.”

He
cleared his throat softly
. “People lose hope when that happens. They lose their sense of purpose. But people like you are the reason that the rest of them can plan for tom
orrow. You’re the reason they can
hope.” He paused, then nodded, as though he felt he had communicated
what he’d wanted to say
.

Then he
quickly held up a piece of paper and focused on it. “First group, I’m going to call your names. If I call your name, please step to this side of the room.” Lee motioned to the left of the doorway. Then he began to call the names.

He called out twe
lve in all. A
mong them were
Julia, Nate Malone, Mike and Torri Reagan, and Devon Mills. As he called their names, they began to filter to the left side of the room.

When everyone was situated, Lee went on. “You folks that I just called out will be with Harper. Your group will be going north. I’ll talk more about it in a minute.” He looked to the others that had naturally drifted to the
opposite
side of the room. “I’m going to call the rest of you, and you will make sure you’re on the right side of the room, if you aren’t already.”

Among the next thirteen names that he called were
Jim,
LaRouche
,
and Wilson. When he was done calling the name
s
, he asked for LaRouche to step forward. The sergeant looked around hesitantly, but stepped to Lee’s side.

Lee gestured to everyone on the right. “If I just called your name and you are standing to the right, you will be under the control of LaRouche. And you’ll be heading east.”

There was a stir in the room.

Lee had expected it.

He knew th
e question before it was asked, bu
t
it
was LaRouche who voiced it. “Uh, Cap…shouldn’t it be you?”