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For the Triumph of Evil

JAMIE IBSON


When they turned into the farmhouse, Avery Todd’s heart sank.

Two bushels of corn, maybe, lay heaped in the dirt outside the home. They hadn’t been shucked; they’d barely been trimmed of their stalks. Not nearly enough.

“Fink, take Charlie team around back.”

His second-in-command did so, and they faded into the tree line that defined the homestead’s front yard. Todd went to the front door and knocked on it sharply, three times.

It’s all out front in th’dooryard,” a man’s voice shouted.

“No, it isn’t, and you know it, John,” Todd replied. He stepped back down off the porch. “You’ve got better than five acres here, all prime farmland. You and I surveyed it a month ago. Even by hand, you had fifty bushels, and we were taking five.”

The door slammed open and John Hudson, a skinny, red-faced man in tattered plaid and jeans, stormed out. “Yeah? That was before bandits from La Belle Province came and stole half in the night. Where were you then, militia?” The man’s voice dripped with venom. “We hid in the crawlspace, had to listen to them as they eyeballed the laundry on the line, and joked about what they’d do to Hazel. What they’d make me watch them do to her.”

Todd sighed. “I know ammunition’s scarce, John, but—”

“But nothing!” he shouted. “It was all we could do to keep the babies quiet. Two bushels! That’s all. More than you thieves deserve, running a protection racket like this.”

A woman emerged from the house, an infant cradled in one arm and a toddler holding her other hand. “John, getting mad at them isn’t going to help. They didn’t steal the corn—”

“What does it look like they’re doing right now?” he snapped.

Fink came around the corner. “There’s more out back, Sarge. A lot more.”

Todd shot Hudson a glare and followed his second around behind the house. Old plastic rain barrels had been tucked under a threadbare tarp. He counted twenty-three barrels, and ears of corn stuck out the top of each one. One barrel generally held three bushels of corn, more or less.

“This looks like a helluva lot more than just twenty bushels, John,” Avery called. “You lying to me?”

The back door burst open, and John stormed out holding a Remington 870. He pumped the action and pointed it at Fink. “You had to go snooping, didn’t you? Get off my property, thief.”

Finkenzeller raised his hands. Todd swore and brought his rifle up, but Hudson was on the far side of his second, and he didn’t have a shot. He’d gotten complacent, and now someone was going to die.

“This isn’t helping anyone, John. Lower the gun.”

“Not until you thugs are off my property!”

“Everyone, back off. John, we’ll just take what’s out front and go—”

“No, you won’t,” the man snarled. “You had your chance.” He descended the steps from the back porch and cross-checked Fink in the chest with the shotgun. Craig Finkenzeller was a tall man who’d been doing this long enough to know why no one had lit the homesteader up yet. Fink let the cross-check knock him over backward; Hudson lowered the shotgun barrel, and realized his error too late.

The recoil on the C7 rifle was light, and adrenaline meant Todd barely felt the kick. He stroked the trigger twice—tak tak!—and Hudson’s chest blossomed red. Other members of One-Three-Charlie fired, and the man collapsed under the fusillade.

As abruptly as the gunfire started, it was over. The gunshots rang in Todd’s ear—his tinnitus was getting worse—but worse than the ringing was Hazel Hudson’s shrieks.

She rushed out of the farmhouse to her husband’s side with nothing but a wordless wail. Todd kept his rifle at the low ready, but the danger wasn’t past. “McCain! Get that shotgun clear!”

“Sarg’nt!” he acknowledged, and the young rifleman moved up and pulled the shotgun clear. Hazel ignored him completely, and from within the farmhouse, a baby started to cry.

“Fink, you all right?”

“Yeah.” The junior NCO got to his feet. He knelt next to the homesteader and reached to feel for a pulse, but Hazel slapped his hand away.

“You’ve done enough already, bastard,” she hissed. “I suppose you’ll moralize to me about defending yourselves next? So was he!”

“Sarge?” McCain said. “Gun was unloaded.”

“’Course it was unloaded!” Hazel snapped. “He used the last of our shells scaring off those bandits what came raiding a few weeks back. They’s the bastards what came back again and stole your thievin’ share of the crop. S’not our fault you assholes suck at your job! Get the fuck off my property. Don’t ever come back.”

Fink looked to Todd in confirmation. He nodded. Without a word, the section moved back to the front yard and down the lane to the road. “Hey, uh, Sarge?” Brooke Pelletier said. “We leaving the corn?”

“Yeah, Brooke. We’re leaving it,” Todd replied. Pelletier and her fireteam partner kept an eye on the house as the rest of the section left the property, then fell back to join them. Todd made it all the way out to the road before he sank to his knees and vomited.

* * *

The roar of the falls hid his section’s footsteps as they headed for the barracks—what had once been the visitor’s museum. Todd leaned on the railing and watched the St. John River churn and foam below the dam that kept an ever-shrinking portion of Grand Falls and the surrounding area powered. Parts were scarce, mostly cannibalized from a smaller station downriver, and one day something vital would break. Until then, Grand Falls’ command post was as close to their generating station as they could manage.

“Stu’s ready for us, A-T,” Finkenzeller said.

Todd leaned back from the railing and let out a deep breath he’d been holding. He unloaded his rifle’s magazine, ejected the chambered round, caught it midair, and replaced it at the top of the magazine. He locked the bolt back and stuffed the magazine in a pouch. No loaded weapons allowed in the command post, Superintendent’s orders. The old tourist info center, now a command post for the militia, looked directly at the falls that gave the town its name and inside, Inspector Kris Stuart waited for them. The info center had once had a pool-table-sized 3D map of the area, to show tourists how the Grand Falls hydroelectric dam operated. Now it was their deployment map.

“Sergeant Todd, how very good of you to join us,” he said. Stuart oozed smarm. He was the only member of the platoon who’d managed to keep himself freshly shaven, per regulations, and treated himself to a trip to the barber at least once a week. He was one of those political animals that would suck ass to the higher ups and insult you to your face. He’d smile when he did and took great offense whenever someone called him on it. Maybe Todd’s platoon was unusually rebellious, but it seemed Stuart spent half his time sucking up to Superintendent Reynolds, and the other half having a tantrum because one troop or another had called him out on his crap.

Other than Todd’s troops, Stuart was the only one in the ops center. The regular staff had evidently found somewhere else to be, as they often did whenever he was around. “I’d hoped to catch the afternoon wagon south, Sergeant, but missed it on account of needing to meet with you.”

“Sorry to be an inconvenience,” Todd said. “It’s a six-and-a-half-hour hike from Sisson Ridge, sir.”

“I know how far it is to Sisson Ridge, Sergeant, but you’d just had a UIS. You had horses, did you not?”

“UIS, sir? Is that some new TLA I’m not familiar with?”

“TLA?” Stuart replied. “What’s a TLA?”

“Three letter acronym.”

“Oh. Oh, I see. Yes, very, um, clever. I’m surprised you don’t know the proper terminology, Sergeant, you really ought to keep up on reporting standards better. A UIS is an uninfected-involved shooting. As you know, ever since the CAF came under civil control, it’s not just kicking doors and grenading the room anymore. Any time you shoot someone not affected by the H7D3 virus, you need to report in immediately, by radio preferably, on foot ASAP if not.”

“Understood, Inspector. The batteries on the handhelds aren’t holding a charge like they did, and these longer-distance patrols you’ve been sending us on mean the charge is gone by the time we’re coming back in. We had horses, yes, but they’re draft horses pulling wagons laden with the harvest tax. They lack saddles, reins, and everything else necessary to ride them. Never mind the wagon needs both of them to pull it, can’t be done with just one.”

Stuart rolled his eyes. “Excuses. Not impressed, Sergeant. Now, explain to me why you and your troops shot an unarmed man?”

Todd clenched his jaw until the fury passed and narrowed his eyes tight. In short, clipped phrases, he explained what had gone wrong at the Hudson homestead.

“Unacceptable, Sergeant. You let some country bumpkin get the drop on your men, and couldn’t even tell if the rifle was loaded?”

“Riley?” Todd called.

“Sergeant!” the corporal responded and handed over the pump-action twelve-gauge. Todd pumped the action aggressively and lowered the barrel.

“Can you tell? Sir?”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re a trained cop, you guys get way more time with shotguns than a mere infanteer. Is this shotgun—and it’s a shotgun, sir, not a rifle—loaded? Or no? If you’re convinced it’s unloaded, just say the word and I’ll pull the trigger and prove you right or wrong. Better be sure, though.”

“Sergeant Todd, put that rifle on the ground this instant.”

Todd glared at him, then shrugged his shoulder to let his C7 slip free, and he let the rifle clatter to the floor.

“You know what I mean!”

“Loaded or unloaded, sir? Fifty-fifty. Make the call.”

Stuart glanced around the command center and realized, perhaps for the first time, that he really was alone in there with Todd’s team. “Unloaded!” he blurted.

Todd shook his head, hit the bar release, and pumped the action. A red-hulled twelve-gauge buckshot shell flew clear and clattered to the ground. “Wrong. Boom, Fink’s dead.”

He laid the shotgun on the map of the area, barrel pointed safely out the window. “My section is done for the week, sir. The wagon’s been dropped off at the old Walmart and we are heading home. See you next Tuesday.”

Todd scooped up his C7 from where it had fallen and left without looking back.

* * *

His troops fell in behind him, and once they were clear of the parking lot, Todd stopped and faced them. “Bring it in, guys.” He looked over their shoulder, to be certain no one from the command center had followed. “Okay, that went immediately to shit. That’s on me. Don’t think for an instant you can, or should, ever treat a civvy oversight officer like that. I should be cut loose for that. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him second-guess us over whether a gun’s loaded or not, not when Fink’s life was at risk.”

“I’m confused about that, Sarge,” McCain said. “It was unloaded. I cleared it at the site and cleared it again when we went into the CP.”

“I palmed a shell from my pocket and slipped it into the ejection port when I pumped the action. Emergency reload. I may have a little more time with smoothbores than Stuart realizes. Obviously, there’s no way to tell whether a weapon’s readied just by looking at it, but Stuart needed a reminder.”

“The hell good are the COOs doing, anyways?” Pelletier groused. “All they do is shit all over our work.”

“You know the answer to that,” Finkenzeller said. “They’re what makes what we’re doing legitimate. As legit as anyone is. Stuart’s boss is Reynolds. Reynolds is in touch with the government types in North Bay. Otherwise, we’re just a well-armed street gang—and that would mean John Hudson was right.”

McCain looked like he wanted to object, but he kept his mouth shut. Todd told them to expect to report in, in the morning, despite what he’d told Stuart. He dismissed them and went home.

* * *

The old house was way too empty, but he wasn’t about to open the ancestral Todd family home for anyone else to move in. Family roots went deep in New Brunswick, and the house had been built one hundred twenty years earlier by a great-great uncle, some kind of local magnate in the lumber biz. It was old, creaky, the floors were uneven, and the plumbing didn’t work anymore, but it was the home he’d grown up in. It was the home he’d retired to after getting a little too intimate with a Kandahar IED, and the home where he’d buried his family. Before the collapse, a shrink might have told him staying in the house after interring his wife and sons in the yard was unhealthy.

Fuck healthy, he thought. Ain’t no one alive today who hasn’t lost loved ones to the plague; stress injuries are the new normal.

He’d only just lit a fire in the basement wood furnace when a knock came at the door. He staggered his way up the stairs. Finkenzeller stood at the door, with a bottle in his hand. “Come in,” he called.

Finkenzeller knew his way around the old place and went directly to the kitchen while Todd made his way out front, to the library. He sank into his favorite chair and when Fink returned from the kitchen, Todd accepted a glass. He drained it and placed the glass down.

“Give me that, you’re not done yet,” Fink said, and refilled the whiskey tumbler again.

Todd eyed the bottle. The label was scratched and faded. “What is it?”

“Only the finest from the Finkenzeller liquor cabinet. Writer’s Tears. The last bottle of real whiskey I’ve got left, to toast you for saving my ass. Again.”

“You know that gun was empty just as well as I do,” Todd said. The second glass, he sipped, and appreciated the real honest-to-God whiskey, vastly better than what passed for local hooch.

“I believe you just finished explaining to His Lordship, Inspector Screw-up, that we did not know it was at the time.”

“Dammit, Craig, you know there’s a difference between what’s just, what’s legal, and what’s right.”

“Fuck that. What’s right in this world died of plague.”

“I don’t believe that. Not for a second. Grab that book, there. Second shelf, left-hand side, third one in.”

Finkenzeller went to the bookshelf and searched the titles until he found the one Todd meant. “Edmund Burke?”

“That’s the one. Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents. Check the inside cover.”

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil, is that good men do nothing,” Finkenzeller read aloud.

“Correct. He didn’t actually say that, but a lot of people thought he did, and I wrote it in that cover before I learned he’d been misquoted. What he actually says is When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”

“And what the hell does that mean?”

“I’m sure some zombie somewhere that used to be an English prof could give you the official interpretation, but I take it to mean we can’t lose sight of our moral compass and we have to do what we know is right. We need to stick together, maintain the standards. We can’t let pragmatism justify harm or let circumstances excuse evil. I’m not feeling that, right now. I feel like John Hudson was, if not right, at least justified in trying to keep what he’d grown to feed his family. If we were in the medical profession, I’d say we’d violated the hell out of First, Do No Harm. There’s never been a military in history that did double duty as local tax collectors that didn’t go to hell with a real sense of urgency. We should be protecting people, not rolling up and down the road seizing corn and potatoes at gunpoint.”

“How very philosophical,” Fink replied, a mocking grin on his face.

It might have been the whiskey hitting his system, but Todd felt his heart quicken its pace. “Damn right! What else is there? Either we’re the good guys, or we’re thugs. Either we’re scum, or we’re the goddamn Royal Canadian Regiment. There’s no middle ground here. And I’m steadily coming to believe Stuart, Vander Goof or whatever his name is, Reynolds, and all these Civil Oversight Officers are scum that’s poisoning the well.”

“From philosophy to treason, in twenty seconds, that’s gotta be a record.” Finkenzeller got to his feet and collected Todd’s empty tumbler. “Inspector Stuart here, Thought Police,” he mimicked. “Looks like you’ve had a little too much to think, there, Sergeant. Fifty lashes with a wet noodle!”

“Oh God, not the noodle!” Todd chuckled. Finkenzeller’s impression was spot on.

“And no more reading!”

While Todd feigned horror, the junior NCO returned to the kitchen, and quickly rinsed the glasses with water from the rain barrel outside. He returned to the library and leaned against the doorway. “In all seriousness, A-T, I’m not thrilled with Stuart or Reynolds either. But we’ll get through it. The military’s had shitty PMs, shitty CDSs, and shitty generals before. We’ve always managed.”

“We’ve never had to manage with the near-total collapse of Western civilization before, Craig.”

“You may have a point. Until we’ve got a solution, Stuart wants us back at it tomorrow morning. I imagine he thinks being posted to the Hub for a few days is some kind of punishment.”

Todd stood. “Of course he does. Better hit the rack, then. Sleep in tomorrow, I’ll send someone for you before lunch.”

“Appreciated.”

* * *

The section, less Master Corporal Finkenzeller, marched along the old 108 Highway until the overpass came into view. Todd searched the tree line two kilometers south and shook his head. “Doesn’t it just give you the warm fuzzies, knowing we’re being watched by a troop of Leopard 2s and Coyotes?”

“So long as they’re on our side,” McCain replied, and waved to the Royal Canadian Dragoons, whose armored vehicles covered the Hub from a distant ridge to their south. Between the Coyote’s 25mm Bushmaster chain guns and the Leopard 2’s 120mm Rheinmetall cannons, they were the actual security for the Hub—the infantry were merely an ablative tripwire. Todd left the roadway and crossed to a tree line by the rail. “Hello, the Hub! One-Three-Charlie’s come to visit!”

“The hell does Charlie want?” a voice called back. Sergeant Oliver Wood, section commander for One-Three-Alpha, emerged from the camouflaged OP and tipped back the brim of his bush cap. He was the height and breadth of a Morian Dwarf, with an accent and ginger beard to match.

“Sergeant Wood,” Todd greeted him, and threaded his way through a cordon of camouflaged sandbags. The soldier frowned, and Todd allowed himself to smile. “Per Inspector Stuart’s orders, I relieve you.”

“I stand relieved—but we’re not due to rotate off for another three days,” Wood scowled. “What gives?”

“Ordinarily, yes. But we had a shooting yesterday out near Sisson Ridge, and so His Magnanimousness is punishing us by giving us extra duty. You’re being granted a few extra days off.”

Wood cocked his head quizzically. “Because you tagged an infected? The hell is his—”

“No, because I let an angry farmer get the drop on us with an unloaded twelve-gauge. Fink’ll be along later; he’s the one who was looking down the barrel, he mighta tied one on last night. Medicinal, of course.”

“Medicinal or not, looks like he’s not too far behind you, A-T.” The shorter man pointed back down Highway 108 to Finkenzeller, only a hundred meters back or so and marching quickly. Wood handed over a battered pair of binoculars hanging from a braided string around his neck. “It’s been quiet. Nothing to see except the occasional fox, coyote, porcupine, or raccoon. Hotel-One-One spotted a moose last week, but nobody had anything large enough to take it down. The Dragoons wanted to have a go at hitting it with their Bushmaster, but their commander wimped out.”

“Wimped out?”

“Oh sure,” Wood replied. “Maybe you were out on patrol, didn’t get the orders. No more using ‘inappropriate’ calibers for hunting. The only rifles we can use for deer or moose are the C3 or the C14. No more M2, no more twenty-five mil. The Dragoon commander had this enormous bull moose dead to rights but he punked out, didn’t want to piss off His Magnanimousness.”

“We don’t have C3s or C14s,” Todd protested. “The only .308 we have is for the C6s, and .338 is rarer than a COO with time on a trigger.”

“As you say. But them’s the orders. Stuart said it came from Reynolds, and Reynolds got it from Paul McIvor himself, direct from North Bay.”

“McIvor?” Finkenzeller replied as he approached. “The defense minister? He have another visit from the good idea fairy?”

Wood nodded. “He must’ve. Terribly helpful he is, governing from a thousand klicks away, six hundred feet down.”

Todd rolled his eyes. “Fink, so long as you’ve joined us, get the troops out into their OPs to relieve One Section and figure out a relief rotation.”

Fink nodded and assigned Three Section’s fireteams to OPs. Each observation post had a clear view of the primary command trench, where Wood had been and where Todd would remain. One OP surveyed the Trans-Canada Highway as it went north and west towards Quebec. A second OP watched Highway 108 to the west, and the third was elevated to keep an eye on the only rail line that connected the Maritimes to the rest of Canada.

Pelletier and McCain were making their way down the rail overpass when an unfamiliar voice shouted, “STAND TO!”

Wood’s head snapped around, searching the three OPs for the one who called out. Pelletier and McCain froze in place, halfway across the bridge, looked back at where they’d come from, then Pelletier smacked her fireteam partner on the arm and dashed forward. Wood pointed to the rail line OP, where one of his troops waved a yellow signal flag. “Yellow! Shit! Flags, where are the . . . there!” Wood seized a .50cal ammo can, threw the lid open, and pulled out one of their signaling flags. He unfurled the yellow banner and waved it madly overhead.

Finkenzeller passed Todd the binoculars. “There, about three hundred meters out,” he pointed.

Todd lifted the scarred binocs to his eyes, and yes, there was indeed someone—multiple someones—approaching down the rail.

They might have been pickup trucks, once, but had been skeletonized down to the frame and approached backwards, with the truck’s tailgate and a canopy at the leading edge. Those created a strange kind of enclosure at what would have been the bed of the truck, above small train wheels that kept it on the rails. At the rear, where the cab of the truck should have been, someone wearing green CADPAT pedaled . . . a bicycle?

It took a moment for Todd to discern its function. There was no rear wheel on the bike, it had been fixed in place somehow, and the rear sprocket turned a second chain that disappeared beneath the deck. Todd had a brief flashback to Bugs Bunny cartoons when he was young, and the pump trolleys Wile E. Coyote favored. He supposed a bike would be far less tiring to use than one of the armatures. However the approaching strangers had done it, it worked. They were still at distance, but even that far out he could tell they were moving at a pretty good clip.

Two more trucks, more or less identical, followed the first. Pelletier and McCain stayed low and dove into the OP. A muted thud came from the embankment to their left and a moment later, the staccato crack of a single Bushmaster 25mm chain gun blast followed. The Dragoons had spotted Wood’s flag and were ready to support.

“Let the first one pass the OP, then smoke the bridge off. If they’re smart, they’ll stop and do as they’re told. If they’re not, we light ’em up and wait for the Coyotes to do the same.”

Finkenzeller unslung his Ruger Mini-14 and pulled an all-too-rare colored smoke grenade from his load-bearing vest. He eyed it critically.

“We’re not saving them for a rainy day, Fink, get ready.”

Fink unscrewed the lid of the grenade, yanked it away from the grenade’s body, and threw it as far down the tracks as he could manage. It hissed, puffed, and red smoke began billowing from the device. It briefly obscured the lead vehicle, but the screech of steel train wheels on rails made it clear the occupants were stopping. Todd went to one of the preestablished firing positions and looked down the scope of his C7.

The grenade hissed red smoke that obscured the vehicles but as it finished, it appeared the occupants of the lead vehicle had dismounted. Three occupants had taken cover kneeling against the concrete edges of the railway overpass. The canopy window had flipped up, the tailgate was down, and Todd spotted a fourth still in the shadows of the canopy, lying prone in the truck.

The dismounts wore CADPAT and hunter camouflage, while the one in the bed of the rail-truck thing appeared to be in navy blue that blended into the shadow. They were all armed with a rifle Todd was well acquainted with.

“They’re carrying C7s,” Fink whispered. “They might be friendlies.”

“YOU! ON THE RAILS! ADVANCE ONE TO BE RECOGNIZED!” Todd shouted.

The three who’d dismounted exchanged glances. One of the men wearing Canadian Army camouflage came forward, holding his C7 barrel down in his off hand. He let the stranger advance until he stepped clear of the overpass. Todd ducked low and went to one of the side entrances to the OP that looked south at the rails as it passed. From there, he would be wholly hidden from the others on the bridge, and able to see the man more clearly.

“Halt there, stranger,” Todd ordered. The man turned to face him. A long-faded memory floated to the surface. “Who are—wait. Holy shit! Jim? Is that you?”

Recognition crossed the man’s face, and he broke into a smile. “Avery Todd, you sonofabitch! How the hell are you?” Warrant Jim Kolar asked.

His mustache was more salt, and less pepper and he’d slimmed down some—but then, everyone had. Todd had served with Kolar years earlier, and though it was a relief, he eyed Kolar warily. “Well as can be expected. Not to be too blunt but what the hell are you doing here, and who do you have with you?”

* * *

The sun crept ever closer to the horizon, and Avery Todd’s heart was thudding so hard in his chest he thought Two Section’s commander, Master Corporal Danielle Shearer, might hear it. He hadn’t been this nervous since—well, he couldn’t remember a time being this fearful.

“Hello, the Hub!” she called as her section approached. “One-Three-Bravo approaching.”

“Come on up,” Todd called back. She would have been given the update by Stuart by now and would know he was being rotated into the daytime guard spot for the time being. Shearer led her section of militia up the trail and pulled up short when the trench came into view. She counted the bodies present in the dugout bunker in an instant, and her hand went to the pistol grip of her rifle.

“What the hell is this, A-T?” she asked.

“This,” Todd replied, “is an introduction. To some friends from points west of here. Far west of here. Make weapons safe and bring everyone in. It’s been an unusual day.”

Shearer frowned but ushered her section forward. Her lone C9 machine-gunner, Corporal Vince Keegan, led the way in. He paused a moment to clear the belt off his gun’s feed tray, slammed the cover back down, and took a seat. Her junior-most private, Alexandra Fox, came second, and the rest of the section followed.

The command OP was built to be a fighting position for the whole section, if need be, with additional slots dug and revetted in case they ever got ammunition for one of their recoilless rifles again or brought up a C6 medium machine gun. As such, there was sufficient room for Todd, Fink, Wood, Shearer’s section, and their guests. Even more strangely, everyone was sitting on fresh ammo crates.

“Danielle Shearer, meet Warrant Jim Kolar. Jim, this is Danielle and Duke’s Company, Three Platoon, Two Section. Danielle, I know Jim from years back. We did CIMIC projects in Afghanistan together, before I got blown up way back when. We lost touch after they gave me the medical discharge. Apparently, Jim rode out the end of the world in North Bay. He’s just arrived, hauling party favors.” Todd gestured to the ammo crates. “We’ve practically got enough to clear Halifax, and there’s more where it came from.”

“That so?” Shearer said. “The question is, are you better or worse than our current batch of bunker bastards?”

“Better, I hope,” Jim said with a confident smile. “That’s why we’re meeting here, instead of your command post downtown.”

“I don’t follow.”

Todd took a deep breath. “What would you say if I told you, Stuart, Reynolds, and the rest of those supposed Civil Oversight Officers have been lying to us since day one?”

Danielle frowned. “I’d say, convince me.”

Todd opened a scrap of paper where he’d written some notes and read it aloud. “Danielle Shearer, originally joined the CAF Reserves as Danielle Boarmain in 1998. Service number Echo-3-2, 1-9-0, 8-6-9. Qualified LS and ML driver in 2000, Comms in ’02. Passed PLQ phase one first attempt, did not finish PLQ phase two due to an ankle injury. Reattempted PLQ phase 2 in ’05, passed. Promoted to Master Corporal in ’07. Transferred to regular force in ’08. Busted back down to corporal, went through all the same shit a second time, passed in ’10, promoted to Master Jack shortly before the plague kicked off.”

Shearer had been nodding along unconsciously as he recited a very brief overview of her service history. “Your point?”

“My point is, Jim’s people have satcoms with CFB North Bay, where our government is still trying to function but with very limited contacts. They gave up on radio ages ago—it doesn’t have the range and we don’t have radio rebroadcast centers anywhere in Canada. Yet. They do have access to certain databases, though, including military records. Here’s the problem. Stuart, Reynolds, and the rest of the COOs have supposedly been in radio contact with North Bay. That’s why they’ve been ordering us to collect ‘taxes’ for them—Ottawa’s orders. That’s why they’ve decided to limit what we can hunt with.”

“Ottawa’s orders,” Shearer repeated.

“Right. Do you remember whose, specifically?”

“D-Min McIvor.”

Kolar nodded. “Defense Minister McIvor was indeed our senior minister when Reynolds and his group left North Bay. He had a heart condition, and with no blood pressure meds, he died of a heart attack in his sleep a year ago.”

“Who’s in charge, then?” Shearer asked.

“General Nadarzinski is chief of defense staff. He’s advising Prime Minister Singer directly,” Kolar said.

“You’re building up to something,” Shearer said, “and I’m afraid I know what it might be. Out with it.”

Kolar stood. “You’re right to be skeptical. Even with Todd vouching for me, Sergeant Wood still needed to have my bona fides confirmed as well. The truth of the matter is this. Reynolds isn’t a Superintendent, never was. He was a Staff Sergeant in Ottawa Police’s traffic section. Stuart was a sergeant in Emergency Planning. Morris was in Professional Standards. De Groot was a drug investigator who got busted by Morris for trafficking in bogus vaccine. He was literally in custody the day Cabinet got airlifted out to North Bay, and they brought him along rather than leave him to starve to death in a cell.”

“Jim was part of a group called Task Force Sunset,” Todd continued. “After that first winter froze most of our infected to death, they spent the first year and a half making their way west to the Pacific. They reconnected communities, reconnected supply routes, got Camp Dundurn active again, and distributed ammunition to anyone who needed it for clearance. When they made their way back to North Bay, they learned Task Force Sunrise—Reynolds and his team—only made it as far as Montreal before going comms dark. North Bay’s theory was that Sunrise hit a heavy pocket of infected there and died, until Jim’s team arrived here this morning. Assuming they’re really them—and not some shitheads who killed them and assumed their identities—they’ve been falsely pretending to have North Bay’s authority this whole time.”

Shearer glanced around the trench, then pulled out a notebook and a pencil. “Fox, come here.” She whispered into Fox’s ear and handed her the notebook. Fox looked at her quizzically for a moment, then nodded and wrote something down. Shearer turned back to Kolar. “You have satcoms with North Bay? And they can pull up a soldier’s service record?”

“I do, and I can.”

“Okay. Contact them and get the last three of Private Alexandra Fox’s service number. Born 1996.”

Kolar looked to a blonde woman with him, and she retrieved a satphone from her pack. She powered it up, entered an encryption sequence, and placed a call.

“Sergeant Cavanaugh, Tango-Fox Sunset, for Colonel Anderson,” she said. She waited a moment, then requested Fox’s service record details. She paused a moment. Then, “Are you sure? Okay, thank you, Colonel. More to follow soon, we hope. Out here.”

She stabbed the button to end the call. “North Bay says, no record of an Alexandra Fox on file from 1996.”

Shearer smiled. “Good. There shouldn’t be one, Alex joined us last summer. She doesn’t have an official record.”

“That was a test?”

“It was. And you passed. You must have some sort of plan?”

* * *

At oh-dark-thirty, Wood knocked on Todd’s rear door. The only people who could really keep time anymore were those whose watches’ batteries hadn’t died yet. Todd hadn’t worn a watch in the years prior to the plague. He’d bought one of the new Samsung Galaxy S’s, and used its clock, calendar, and alarm for anything specific he needed to remember.

Then the plague hit, the power grid started to fail, and they began cannibalizing parts and cutting off power lines to maintain what little they could. With no way to keep his phone powered outside of the CP, the best he could do was keep time “ish.” Wood, meanwhile, still used his ruggedized G-SHOCK watch, which had taken a beating but kept on beeping. Todd had made sure to light his evening fire and extinguish his candles as he “went to bed,” but rather than hitting the rack he’d gone up to his attic and dug out his old hunting gear.

His duty uniform, a threadbare old pair of CADPAT fatigues sized for someone better fed than he, got left at home. The benefits of blending in with anyone not read-in on the plan to remove Stuart and his ilk also meant it would be harder to identify friendlies at a distance. By now, most of the survivors had hunting garb that would do in a pinch and were just as good if not better for inclement weather. That would be the new “uniform.”

His C7 stayed at home too. He didn’t want to have to shoot anyone—in fact, he’d be happy if he never shot anyone ever again—but C7 mags were few and far between and they’d left them with the troops in case the whole op went to hell and the militia went full fratricide.

It was his .308 RFB he picked up instead and slid out the back door. They followed a long-beaten footpath back out to the main road. They moved from backyard to backyard, until Stuart’s house, across the street from the tourist center, came into view.

Where Todd’s heart had hammered against his chest before, as they hoped to convince Shearer to if not join in on the plan, at least accept it, he was calm now. It was rebellion, certainly, but against an unlawful authority who’d deceived the whole region. He’d strayed entirely too close to “just following orders,” and that shit was over. They crept up to the front of the house, staying to the shadows until the very end. Wood handed his bolt-action Ruger over and produced a flask from a pocket.

“To hell: may the stay be as much fun as the road to get there,” he said, and took a swig. He let the moonshine swirl in his mouth for a moment, then he grimaced, swallowed, and belched. With his breath suitably tainted, he affected a drunken gait and stumbled up to Stuart’s front door. Wood pounded on it for a moment, then took a few steps back and leaned against the railing.

Stuart came to the door a moment later. His normally slick blond hair was free of whatever oil he used to keep it that way and was an unkempt mess. He wore a thick, baby blue dressing gown, flannel pants, and slippers. His right hand was buried in the pocket of the dressing gown and that side of the gown sagged sharply, as though something heavy and pistol-shaped was concealed within. Wood feigned drunkenness and waved.

“Oh, shir, oh, sho good yer ’ome. There’sh been an, an ackshident!” He pointed across the road to the tourism center, lost his balance, and stumbled clear of the porch.

Stuart frowned, unlocked his door, and stepped onto the porch. “What is it, Wood? An accident?”

Todd raised his rifle to his shoulder. “Not yet, Sergeant, but the night is young.” Stuart jumped at the ambush and stumbled backward, almost toppling over the railing. Todd continued, keeping his voice clear and even. “Show me your hands, slowly. Up above your head. If steel comes out of that pocket, you die.”

Stuart’s eyes bulged but he did as he was told and raised his hands—empty—until they were fully outstretched. “I’ll have you banished for this, Avery,” he snarled. “If not executed outright.”

“You and what army?” Todd snapped back. “Pistol, right side pocket, grab it, Oliver.”

Wood ascended the steps and patted Stuart down thoroughly. The .44 revolver—unloaded—went into Wood’s cargo pocket, as did a knife he’d found tucked into the waistband of Stuart’s pajama pants. Woods pulled out a length of paracord and slipped a prepared loop over one wrist, tied it around the other, and then looped the whole thing around Stuart’s waist, cinching it tight.

“We are going to the command post,” Todd said. “Move. Now.”

Wood shoved him forward, and Stuart stumbled off his steps. Todd returned Wood’s rifle to him, and shoved Stuart forward with the body of his rifle. The COO sullenly marched across the street, slippers and all, until they went inside.

“Oh . . . Oh shit,” Stuart said.

“Evening, Kris,” Jim Kolar said. He got up from behind the ops table and gestured for Stuart to have a seat. “Been a long time.”

“I—I—it’s not what it looks like,” he stammered. Shearer was present, as was her gunner Keegan, Finkenzeller, and Wood’s second-in-command, Kulveer Singh.

Todd scoffed. “It is exactly what it looks like. I notice you didn’t react when I called you Sergeant, just a few minutes ago. Sergeant Stuart, from OPS Emergency Ops, is it?” He gestured to an always locked door, with a “Communications, Keep Out” sign stuck to it. “You’ve claimed you’re North Bay’s mouthpiece since you got here. Prove it.”

“But—I . . . ”

Shearer let out a growl of frustration and buried her hand in his hair. She took hold and dragged him headfirst over to the door.

“Open it!”

The door was secured with a mechanical combination lock, and Stuart let out a deep sign of resignation. He punched in the code—1-3-5-2-4—and pulled the door open.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Shearer gasped. “A broom closet?”

It could have been a comms shack, Todd supposed. It was narrow, just wide enough he couldn’t have touched both walls at the same time. With some imagination, a desk with radio equipment, a mic, a headset and some notebooks could have gone against one wall with room for a chair.

Instead, there were metal racks with old, unused cleaning products in plastic jugs, a shaggy dust broom, and a yellow mop bucket with a “Caution—Wet Floor” sign hanging off one side.

“Boy, that’s awkward,” Kolar said, shaking his head sadly. “Bring the prisoner over and sit his ass down, would you please, Danielle?”

Stuart yelped as she dragged him over to an empty folding chair and forced him into it. Jim turned to face him. “In case it wasn’t clear, you are relieved of command. One, you and yours have all been lying to these people ever since you got here. Two, as far as North Bay knew, you were dead and dead people don’t have a position in the chain of command. And three, you’re outranked. Questions?”

“What . . . what’re you gonna do?” Stuart whimpered.

“That’s a good question, Kris. Maybe we ought to ask North Bay what their intentions are? Sergeant Cavanaugh?”

Cavanaugh stepped forward and put her satphone down on the table next to Stuart and punched in her codes. “Sergeant Cavanaugh, Tango-Fox Sunset, for Colonel Anderson, please. Good evening, sir. Yes. We have him here. No, nothing like that, meek as a beta with performance anxiety. One moment.”

She pressed the speakerphone button and replaced the handset in its cradle. “Colonel Anderson, present is Kris Stuart, Warrant Kolar, myself, retired Sergeant Avery Todd and his 2i/c, Master Corporal Craig Finkenzeller. Master Corporal Danielle Shearer, her 2i/c Corporal Vince Keegan, Sergeant Oliver Wood, and his 2i/c, Corporal Singh. Go ahead, sir.”

Anderson’s voice was digitized and scratchy, but it came through clear enough. “Please hold for the prime minister.”

Eyes around the room widened at that. Todd had been present when Kolar and Cavanaugh discussed the situation with Anderson, and gave the Colonel a frank, no-bullshit update that started from the moment 911 wasn’t answering anymore. At no point did Anderson suggest they’d be speaking with Singer himself.

“Sergeant Stuart, this is Joe Singer. It’s been almost two years; do you recognize my voice?”

Stuart swallowed hard. “I do, sir.”

“Good. I’m going to be blunt, because the battery packs for those satphones don’t last very long and we’ve got a very convoluted situation to unfuck, thanks largely to you, Tanner Reynolds, and the rest of Sunrise. By my authority, you and the rest of Sunrise are being held for Personation, Fraud, Sedition, Mutiny, and a number of other offenses. Once Sunset has done their work, yourself, Reynolds, and anyone else originally part of Task Force Sunrise will be transported back to North Bay. There, you will be granted access to legal counsel, answering to Major General Carhardt, and eventually, tried. If we are to begin rebuilding this country, we must recognize the powers and the limitations of our government. Might does not make right, and even the most heinous accused is guaranteed some protection from the State. There will be no summary executions, no extrajudicial sanctions, and no violations of our Charter, by anyone. Do you understand?”

“I do, sir.”

“Does everyone else present understand?”

“We do, sir,” Kolar replied.

“Good. That said, Mr. Stuart, Sunset and everyone else there serving in the militia are wholly entitled to use force in the defense of themselves or others. I’d strongly urge you not to test their resolve.”

“Understood, sir,” Stuart whispered.

“Good. As you were, Warrant Kolar. Singer, out.”

* * *

Todd closed the door to the “communications room” and slid a chair under the doorknob. “He won’t be going anywhere soon like that; one down, three to go. Next?”

“We have to bring the Dragoons in on this too,” Wood said. “I tend to forget about them, off on the ridge like they usually are.”

“I’ll get them read in,” Danielle said. “One of their troop commanders is an old boyfriend. Do you think Three Section and your new Sunset friends can go handle the other COOs, A-T?”

Avery looked at Kolar, who nodded. “Between my section and Jim’s guys, we’d be twenty. Four DMRs, three MGs and thirteen rifles. Not that we want to shoot anyone at all, but I think if we rolled up what’s his name, the asshole overseeing One Platoon in Woodstock, then we stand a chance of resolving this without a shot fired. They can’t have any more love for their guy than we have for ours.”

“How do we get there?” Kolar asked. “The only maps we’ve got of the rails show this railway cuts straight across the province to Moncton. Hell, we weren’t expecting to encounter anyone yet; we were aiming for Halifax. You mentioned the Dragoons: do you guys still have diesel somehow?”

“No, when all the fuel started to go bad, that first summer, they brought up a troop of Leopard 2s, a troop of Coyotes, and parked them to function more or less like direct-fire artillery bunkers. They’re running off ethanol, for very short periods of time.”

“G-Wagons will run on ethanol,” Shearer said abruptly. “I’d totally forgotten. We don’t see the RCDs a lot; they’ve mostly just established their own camp up on the ridgeline and communicated directly with Stuart. But they have G-Wagons they converted to run on ethanol too. They used them to bring ammo up from Gagetown last spring. It’s a pain in the ass to distill ethanol in mass quantities, so they try not to run the vehicles any more than necessary.”

“I’d say this is pretty necessary,” Kolar said. “Can you arrange us a meet?”

* * *

“Asshole!” Leftenant Campbell shouted, and he pounded a fist on the cleaning closet door. “Lying prick!”

“Evan, ya big dumb zipperhead!” Danielle shouted. “Rein it in!”

Campbell gave the door one more quick boot, then turned away. His face was flushed and eyes wild. Cavanaugh smirked. “Evan?” she echoed. “Zipperhead? First time I’ve ever seen a junior NCO jack up an officer, by his first name no less. Old boyfriend, you said?”

“Ex,” Campbell admitted. Getting called out like that appeared to have brought him back to calm, somewhat, and the flush in his cheeks had shifted from fury to embarrassment.

“Ex-fiancé,” Shearer said. “Right up until the plague hit. After that, we kinda figured maybe getting hitched in the middle of the end of the world was overly optimistic.”

“Fair,” Kolar allowed. “I take it you share our concerns with Mr. Reynolds and his merry band of lying liars?”

“I do, very much,” Campbell said. “It will deplete most of our reserves, but I’ve got seven G-Wagons that still function. With their adapted fuel tanks, they have the range to reach Mactaquac if you don’t put the hammer down. Alcohol engines guzzle their fuel like you wouldn’t believe. Driving most of the way to Freddie is a one-way trip unless they’ve been distilling fuel down that way too. I’d feel a lot better about it if you’d let my troops drive.”

“They’re your wheels, sir. Master Corporal Shearer might get to order you around, but this humble Warrant isn’t about to,” Kolar grinned.

“Excellent, I’m glad we understand each other. I’ll head out now and get the troops doing their primary DIs and fuel up. Dani can show you guys the way once you’ve got things sorted here.”

* * *

Todd found it strange to be back in a vehicle again, to have the klicks tick by with little to no effort on his part. He’d gotten used to hiking just about everywhere, in the years since the plague. They’d had one moderately disastrous attempt at training up the infantry to ride on horseback and make them Dragoons in earnest, but without proper veterinarian support, tracts of actively farmed grains, winter fodder storage, and leathercrafting equipment, it was just too difficult. Premodern cavalry was going to remain premodern.

The sun broke over the hills to the east, on the far side of the Saint John River, illuminating the mists that drifted over the water’s surface. Todd rode up front, with Corporal Prinsloo driving. Pelletier rode in the back with one of Kolar’s Sunset members, a slim, dark-haired woman in her early twenties whose nametag read KALISZEWSKA.“How was it, living in that bunker underground, Private?” Todd asked. “I can’t imagine being that far down, with no sunlight, for so long.”

“Oh, I wasn’t in North Bay, Sergeant,” she replied. “I was holed up in the Moose Jaw Armories. Stone walls, plenty of IMPs to eat, but had a rapist scumbag for a boss, so it was still pretty awful.”

Pelletier, who was taking a sip from her canteen, choked and coughed a mouthful of water all over the inside of the SUV. “A what?” she gasped.

“He was a piece of shit, a stolen-valor asshole who slid into our chain of command as everything was falling apart. Had been dishonorably discharged but showed up with forged, bogus orders. I guess he imagined he’d be some kind of zombie apocalypse warlord with a harem. Almost worked, too. Sergeant Cavanaugh vented his cranium all over the drill hall floor. Then she and Warrant Kolar invited we survivors to join up with Sunset. Rylie Hamilton and I stayed on with Sunset after we got Camp Dundurn functional again, the others stayed behind to start distributing ammo all over the prairies.”

“Do you know where whatsisname lives?” Todd asked their driver. “Or what the Woodstock CP is? I haven’t been this far south in a year or more.”

Prinsloo nodded. “I haven’t been here, but the LT knows the route. It’s on the far side of the Meduh—Meducks—hell, far side of a little river that joins the Saint John. The CP is a great big warehouse-looking building by where, and I quote, ‘the old train station used to be.’”

“That’s helpful,” Todd grumbled. “I assume they’ll see us coming?”

“Maybe, maybe not. We’ll get off the road before we get to town. They’ve got a vehicle checkpoint at the north end of town with wrecks and sandbags. Locals, however, know there’s a waterfront trail that used to be a rail line. It’s more than wide enough for a G-Wagon and will take us exactly where we need to go.”

“ . . . to where the old train station used to be.”

“Correct. Looks like we’re at the turnoff.”

The lead jeep turned off the main road, down a short side street. Todd’s was second in line and followed it onto a poorly maintained, overgrown path with weeds doing their best to break through the gravel. Overgrown limbs scraped the roof of the G-Wagon, but the ground itself was clear enough that the militarized SUVs had no trouble.

Up ahead, a pair of CADPAT-clad militia troops armed with rifles stepped out of the bush. One put his hand up, as if ordering them to halt. Prinsloo tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “Ready on the doors?”

Kaliszewska reached up to unlatch the roof hatch and unbuckled her seatbelt.

“Top, ready.”

“Right, ready,” Todd said, and unbuckled his belt as well. So did Pelletier.

“Left, ready,”

“Stopping . . . now.”

Prinsloo threw the wheel over to the right just as the G-Wagon came even with the guards. Ahead, Campbell and Kolar goosed the throttle and sped up. Todd threw his door open before the SUV came to a halt, and the Dragoon from Moose Jaw threw the turret hatch open, leading the way with her C7.

“What the hell is—” the guard started, but Todd moved with unanticipated aggression. He clamped both hands on the guard’s bolt-action rifle, shoved, and twisted to disarm him. His victim fell on his ass with an oof and the second guard panically tried to work the bolt on his rifle. Todd drove the barrel of the first guard’s rifle barrel down in the dirt, burying it a handspan deep and rendering it useless. He moved to the second guard, who backpedaled, still trying to work the bolt, but Todd advanced quicker than he could back up. He pushed the gun away and shoved, sending the guard off-balance. He crashed into the brush and Todd pounced.

“STOP! FIGHTING!” he shouted, and jammed the rifle’s receiver under his arm, pinning it between his tricep and ribcage. “WE DON’T WANT TO HURT YOU!”

“Funny—ugh—fucking way to show it!” the guard snarled and yelped as Todd jammed a thumb into his cheek and leaned on the pressure point in the man’s jaw. Todd forced the man’s face over sideways and kept it there.

“Brooke? Rifle!”

“On it!” she replied and approached cautiously. She slung her own weapon and carefully disarmed the soldier.

“A .22?” She gasped in surprise when she cleared the magazine.

“ . . . Yeah,” the man said. “De Groot won’t let us carry anything heavier.”

Todd eased up on the pressure he was applying to the man’s face, then backed off and got up. “A .22 isn’t good for anything but putting holes in paper and shooting squirrels. Is De Groot your COO? Who are you?”

“Yeah,” the man said. “Geoff MacGrath. Who the fuck are you guys?”

“Three Platoon. Here to remove De Groot and put the actual government back in charge. They’ve been lying to us; it’s complicated. Stay here, stay out of the way, and everything will make sense soon.”

Pelletier stripped the bolt from the man’s rifle and held up the bolt. “I’ll leave this for you at the CP.” She pocketed it and leaned the rifle against a tree. “Keep your heads down.”

“Covering,” Kaliszewska barked from the turret hatch.

“Moving,” Todd and Pelletier replied, and in seconds they were back in the SUV and peeling out after the rest of the convoy, leaving the bewildered guards in their dust.

* * *

The trail passed beneath a bridge that crossed the Saint John River and emerged from the woods behind what must have been “downtown” Woodstock. Todd spotted an old Legion building, a farmer’s market that still advertised Buffalo Burgers every Friday, and then they were up onto an old train bridge. It thumped and rattled as the G-Wagon crossed. Todd chuckled when he saw the old sign. “Meh-ducks-neh-kag? Meduxnekeag? Is that how you say it?”

“You see why I gave up trying to pronounce it,” Prinsloo said. A gunshot report washed over them, followed by a flurry of more shots. “Shit!”

Their driver accelerated to clear the bridge faster. “Everyone okay?” Todd asked, searching for whoever was shooting. Kaliszewska kneeled down from the turret hatch. “It came from up ahead, I don’t think it was intended for us.” She stood back up and continued scanning.

More gunshots.

The woods to their left gave way to open lawns, houses, and the river. A minor avenue paralleled their trail, and up ahead the G-Wagons were parked, their occupants ducking behind the vehicles for cover. The warehouse came into view on their left and the instant it did, another flurry of shots rang out. Impacts on their windshield quickly rendered it opaque, and Kaliszewska let out a shrill scream. She fell into the body of the G-Wagon, clutching a bloodied arm. Pelletier cursed and reached for the trauma pack in the trunk. “Get us stopped, Prinsloo; Brooke, take care of her!”

The moment the vehicle stopped moving, Todd threw his door open and rolled clear. The shooting prompted a return salvo from the Sunset members, but no one seemed willing to commit to a full assault. Soldiers fired occasional, individual rounds, but years of being cautious with ammo made them reluctant to commit to winning the firefight.

Todd low-crawled to Kolar’s vehicle where the Warrant was sitting with his back to the engine block. “I take it we lost the element of surprise?”

“You could say that.” Kolar grimaced. “No plan survives contact with the enemy.”

“Where’s Campbell?”

Kolar pointed a thumb over his shoulder. “Silly idiot threw the door open and marched out, ordering De Groot to surrender. They chose violence.”

“He alive?”

“Can’t say.”

Todd got very low and scanned under the G-Wagon. Campbell’s body lay motionless, halfway between the warehouse and the line of G-Wagons. Someone wearing a camouflage hoodie and jeans lay prone, just outside the door, a C7 trapped under his body. Above, the last inch of a rifle barrel poked out from the edge of the overhead door. Although the warehouse walls were corrugated tin, odds were good they were reinforced with concrete cinder blocks for the first eight feet or so, otherwise Sunset’s salvos would have punched right through and taken out the shooter.

The barrel of the rifle, though . . . 

His RFB had always been a tack driver. He was maybe fifty meters away, but the RFB was zeroed for two hundred, so he’d have to hold over a bit high. It was a tiny target—but he’d hit smaller before. Once.

“I’m going for his gun,” Todd said.

“You’re what?”

He’d figure it out. Todd’s heart pounded in his chest, and he took a breath to calm himself. He placed the dot of his scope over the exposed barrel and lifted the dot an inch or so. Took another breath. Took up the slack in his trigger. Let the breath half out.

Squeezed.

Missed.

The muzzle blast kicked up grass, dirt, and leaves all in front of him, but the exposed barrel remained right where it had been. The shooter leaned out and fired a couple more rounds in their direction. One struck the side window of Kolar’s G-Wagon, nudging the vehicle on its shocks. The shooter returned to his previous waiting position, apparently unaware that the rifle’s muzzle was exposed. Todd took another breath and repeated the process. He lifted his point of aim another inch and fired again.

The impact tore the rifleman’s weapon from his grasp and sent it clattering across the warehouse door. Whether the copper-jacketed round had actually damaged the rifle, Todd had no idea, but “disarmed” was infinitely better than “actively shooting” any day of the week. That was the moment the rest of Sunset had been waiting for. Cavanaugh began shouting orders, and her section began a steady staccato beat, pinning the shooter down behind cover, preventing him from retrieving the weapon.

Todd groaned as he got his feet back under him. “FINK! YOUR SHOW!” he shouted.

“Charlie team!” Fink called. “Assault that building!” He emptied his magazine into the side door in one salvo of rapid, aimed fire, dumped his magazine, and reloaded. “Covering!”

McCain and his new fireteam partner, a redheaded South African from TF Sunset named Rowe, raced out from behind their G-Wagon and sprinted for the door. They took positions on either flank of the door, rifles up. “Covering!”

“Moving!” Finkenzeller raced forward with the rest of his assault group. The door handle had taken some hits and rather than move to the side, Fink used the rush to front-kick the door handle, slamming it open. He threw himself aside, and McCain rushed in, followed by Rowe and Finkenzeller.

No gunshots.

Fink returned to the door long enough to call “Building clear!” before disappearing back inside. Todd got up from behind his G-Wagon and was first to the door while Kolar saw to their casualties.

Inside, McCain covered the gunman—a private from One Platoon—while Rowe had her rifle on a trio of unarmed soldiers who cowered in the corner.

“Well, how about that,” Todd said. “I guess we don’t need to roll down to Mactaquac after all. It’s been a while, Tanner.”

“What the hell is the meaning of this, Sergeant?” Tanner Reynolds demanded. “Is this some sort of coup?”

“Oh this? This is you, out of a job and destined for prison. You three know the man commanding the troops outside, it seems.”

“Gentlemen,” Kolar said from the overhead door. “Been a long time. Prime Minister Singer is very displeased.”

“The . . . who?” the young private stammered. “But—”

“McCain, disarm him, search him, and get him outside,” Todd ordered. “He did what he thought was right but was working for the wrong people. Sit him next to the LT.”

“Sergeant,” McCain said, and hustled the private out the door. Todd looked back to Reynolds, Morris, and De Groot, who’d gone pale.

“Awkward, am I right? Seems North Bay’s thought you lot were dead for two years now. Making bogus calls to ‘your bosses’ and making up bullshit to keep all the peasants under your boot. Our boot. Duping us into believing your orders were legit. Had the PM not made it explicitly clear what he plans to do with you—arrest, charges, trial, the works—I’d execute you both, here and now. But that’s not how we roll anymore. So stand up, march outside, and take a good look at dead Lieutenant Campbell and everyone else who’s been wounded by good people who honestly believed they were on the right side of things.”

Todd lowered his rifle and turned to Kolar. “How’s Kali . . . whatsername? The Dragoon from Moose Jaw?”

Kolar frowned. “Not good. She might lose that arm.”

“Dammit.”

Todd’s eyes snapped right at a sudden movement. Tanner Reynolds, rather than marching peacefully outside into custody, dove across the floor for the private’s abandoned rifle. “GUN!” Todd shouted and brought his RFB up. Reynolds didn’t turn, though; he just presented his bare back—and Todd knew he couldn’t shoot him from behind. No threat. Not yet.

“You think I don’t know what Singer’s got waiting for us?” the bogus Superintendent growled. “You think I want to go back in that hole? Just to be condemned to life in another one?” Slowly, he turned. He had the rifle vertical, with the muzzle just below his chin, like he was presenting arms, but his thumb rested on the trigger. “See you in hell.”

“DON’T!” Todd shouted, but too late. Reynolds pressed the trigger.

Rather than painting the ceiling with his brains, though, the report of the shot was muted, and the side of the rifle blew out. Reynolds screamed in pain as his hand was shredded by flying fragments; he dropped the weapon, and clutched his hand under his armpit. Todd tackled Reynolds to the ground and brought his uninjured hand around in a chicken-wing. Rowe came forward with paracord handcuffs and secured both hands behind his back. The wounds to Reynolds’s hand were numerous, but superficial and bloody. Todd spared a look at the rifle.

The muzzle was deformed from where he’d hit it with his rifle round, bending the last few inches of what had been a hot barrel and pinching it shut.

“Coward,” he spat at Reynolds. “You don’t get off that easy. Fink, get him out of here, and post a guard.”

“You got it, Sarge.”

As Finkenzeller and Rowe took their prisoners outside, Todd groaned and stretched. “I’m getting too old for this shit,” he complained.

Kolar laughed. “I’d been meaning to talk to you about that. You ever consider, you know, retirement?”

* * *

“ . . . Yes, Mister Prime Minister, it would be an honor.”

“Very good. Director of Restoration Operations has a good ring to it. May I call you Avery?”

“Of course, sir.”

“Thank you. Warrant Kolar was an absolutely fundamental member of our team, here in the bunker. I came to rely on his judgment just as much as General Nadarzinski’s or any of the other cabinet ministers. I’m pleased you’ve accepted his proposal.”

“It’ll be a bit strange, sir, not wearing a uniform again, for the second time. We took some casualties bringing in Reynolds, good people who aren’t combat effective anymore, but they can still help. We’ll do our best.”

“That’s all anyone can do, these days. New Brunswick still needs its militia, but as a constructive force for rebuilding, not coercion and tax collecting. Trust is a hard thing these days, but you’ve more than earned it and I expect you will demand nothing but the highest standards from your charges. Sunset’s rail riders will be slow in coming, but we will provide you with all the ammunition you can handle to keep clearing east, all the way to Charlottetown and Halifax. We need those cities back, Avery, and if they’re anything like every other city we’ve seen, they’re still hives of infected that need to be tracked down and cleared. Getting the Halifax port functional again is our next major objective, so we can better manage shipping and trade all up and down the St. Lawrence, the Great Lakes, and even down into the U.S. I understand they’ve got a sizeable lash-up down there that has been more or less restoring the government’s capabilities faster than anyone would think possible.”

“We’ll do our part, sir.”

“Very good. Good luck in your new role, Director.”


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Framed