Next Year in Olympia - pt 1 (1-3)

 

 

1

 

David Kilbane began arranging his trade goods on a blanket at the end of the driveway. The day was miserable, forty degrees and drizzling. No one would be out to barter. A patter of misty raindrops struck the light blue canopy overhead with the occasional plop of larger drops that had gathered in the trees. Hard to believe he and Emily had bought the shelter as a sunshade for the beach a few months before the meteors fell and brought the shore several miles closer.

 

Today, like every day, he wondered where she’d traveled, whether her routine had been much different from his own. He never should have sent her ahead alone. Her job had been to secure a place closer to people they could depend on, at least until they transitioned farther west. His had been to gather up what he could salvage from the house and follow on with Shackleton as soon as the bank opened so he could raid their safe deposit box. He’d underestimated how long it would take for the governor to impose travel restrictions and a relocation ban. Gravely underestimated.

 

Never divide your forces. That was a lesson he’d learned the hard way and had been paying for each day of the three years since. At least the messages she’d sent through the encrypted electronic drop box early on had said she’d made it north and was ok. From the pictures she’d attached of what should have been their new home, she might have been still. They might have been. With reinforcements, if either of them could have convinced people to follow. If not, alone.

 

Next year in Olympia, that has always been the plan.

 

Most of what Kilbane laid out was miscellany that had been stuffed into a bathroom drawer he and Emily hadn’t gotten around to cleaning out and donating to the women’s shelter before the meteors fell. Trial sizes of toothpaste, dental floss, and mouthwash their dentist used to give out as freebies. A spray of miniature travel kit sundries: a disposable razor and TSA-approved shaving cream along with single-serve hotel shampoo, conditioner, hand lotion, and a tiny bar of soap they’d picked up on their last vacation. A hodgepodge of individually dosed packets of over-the-counter painkillers, antihistamines, decongestants, antacids, and antidiarrheals they stocked for road trips.

 

Rounded out from around the house with three jam samplers from a set that someone had given them as a Christmas gift several years ago. Two bottles of homemade beer, and another of homemade wine. A half dozen loose rounds of standard .22 ammunition and a trio of 9mm round-nose. An emergency packet of toilet paper for camping, another of tissues, and several individually wrapped tampons that Emily no longer needed and wasn’t there to use.

 

Any items worth more he kept in a sealed bin behind him, restocks of everything he had on display plus things like boxed ammunition, nip bottles of real Jack Daniels, single pot freeze-dried coffee packets, tobacco and rolling papers. Nothing flashy. Mostly things they’d had picked up in the pandemic and hadn’t run through. Anything more exotic he never brought out, even if he had it.

 

He had to be careful to dribble out his stores so as not to attract too much attention lest he become a target of thieves or vigilantes. Or the sheriff. Or just strongarm bullies who thought of him as easy prey. Which was why he laid out a pistol within sight but only within his easy reach. Underpowered and concealable, it would not so much as dent body armor. Not a hand cannon, just a visible reminder that everyone needed to play nice.

 

Shackleton helped with that. Guns might be out of reach or out of ammo, their owners out of action, but dogs never gave up. His border collie wasn’t so big as to be intimidating but was smart enough not only to be trained but to learn. Not that with his blue merle markings most people would identify him as anything but a sky-eyed mutt. Worth the price of keeping him fed. Plus he was good with kids, which put the adults he traded with at ease. And he understood how to gently herd both away from trouble and temptation.

 

By now people in the neighborhood knew to inquire with Kilbane about anything they wanted. The locals called him the neighborhood finding service. For three years, they’d watched him write down their requests in his pocket notebook. Sometimes the items showed up in a week or two, sometimes more than a month later. Not that many people had much left. Increasingly, he accepted fresh vegetables from their gardens, the occasional squirrel jerky or roasted mourning dove but only from sources he trusted. Mostly he didn’t turn anything like what Darby would call a profit. In general, he didn’t break even for his time and investment. But he didn’t skim, didn’t substitute, and didn’t cheat. He was a man of his word on a bargain even if that cost him. That garnered him a reputation for honesty and quality.

 

His real goal was information. People talked, people bitched, people traded rumors and spouted their opinions. He listened, trading rumors back when he had them. Sometimes he invented them just to see where they might lead. Even when the most cautious, quiet individuals in the neighborhood didn’t think they were giving anything away, he learned from what they requested, and what they didn’t. He learned who had what skills they might be willing to trade and whether they were competent. He learned who was dependable, and who wasn’t. He learned who the militia might what to recruit, which he passed on to Hatch.

 

But that was before the militia had been rolled up. Even Kilbane’s covert recon unit had to be dispersed. Until they knew who had been the mole that had blown in the militia, it was too dangerous to reestablish operations.

 

Shackleton made a low, chuffing noise alerting Kilbane that someone was nearby. His hand instinctively dropped toward his pistol even as he scanned the area, following the dog’s eyes. He stopped short of the grip as soon as he saw her. Straight ahead, across the street. How she’d gotten so close without him noticing was beyond him. He’d drifted too far into his own head and assumed the miserable weather would keep people inside. The type of inattentiveness that got people killed, though hopefully not by her.

 

He recognized her as Matt Sullivan’s little girl, Rose. Maybe four years old. She couldn’t be much younger as she was an infant when the meteors fell. The last of Sullivan’s many mouths to feed. Kilbane looked around tentatively for her mother, father, or even an older sibling. No one else was within sight.

 

He knew he should escort her home, although that meant folding up his trade day as Sullivan lived on the far side of the neighborhood. He also knew showing up with her in tow might not end well for her. Sullivan had a temper and a reputation as a bully in the neighborhood watch. Once or twice his wife had turned up on trade day with unexplained bruises. His neighbors whispered about his kids’ occasional wails. Nothing proven. No one had ever asked for help. And nothing in a long time. They were several blocks away, so all Kilbane ever heard was rumor and innuendo. And it wasn’t like he could afford to piss off the watch on what might be idle gossip. Sullivan had a following. Kilbane did not, at least not that Sullivan or the rest neighborhood knew of. Not since the roundups a year ago.

 

As Kilbane considered her, Rose stared back at him unabashedly wide-eyed, as only a four-year-old could. Her hair was damp, lank, and plastered to her head, only partly from the misty rain. She wore a threadbare plaid coat, a hand-me-down from an older brother by its dun and taupe color, and the way she nearly swam in it. It was barely enough to hold back even Florida’s once mild winters before the meteors fell. Her face was smudged with dirt, some of which streaked down her face with the tears of rain.

 

He figured she was here because she was hungry. Everyone was hungry now. The county had had to become agriculturally self-sufficient since the meteors had cratered into Antarctica. A mean feat for the once most densely populated county in the state with the people who hadn’t fled crammed tighter and tighter in the remaining high ground as the oceans rose. Five inches overnight, then a steady three inches a day for just under four months. The beaches and lowlands by the bay had been consumed first.

 

Their peninsula had transformed into a pair of islands, theirs and the detention center five miles south through the mined maze of submerged houses and other hazards. The mainland, once connected by an old US highway and four other bridges across the bay now lay across twenty miles of open water by ferry. None of the humanitarian aid that Luke Morten’s underground radio network said had been allocated to them had ever been distributed.

 

Kilbane couldn’t see Rose’s frame beneath the coat, but her face didn’t look particularly gaunt. In fact, it looked filled out, as if her baby fat still lingered. That struck him as odd. All the other kids he saw in the neighborhood were wiry and whippet-thin.

 

As if to confirm his suspicions, the little girl reached into a makeshift purse hanging diagonally across her chest and retrieved a silver foil packet that she tore open. Without breaking eye contact, she began to munch its contents, which appeared to be some sort of cookie. Where the hell had that come from?

 

Kilbane scrutinized the girl’s purse. It looked improvised, hastily constructed by an inexpert hand. The strap, a length of tan parachute cord, was knotted through metal grommets on each corner, not quite evenly matched. A rectangular design covered in the remnants of dingy floral-printed cloth, likely a cast-off sheet or pillowcase. Like Rose’s hair, the thin, nearly threadbare cloth clung to whatever served as its liner. He could just make out the dark block printing beneath though from this distance he couldn’t read the words. But he could discern the black and white outline of an American flag. The whole affair had a slightly pinkish cast in the dim morning light, which could have been an undertone of the fabric. But looking closer, he spied spots of bright pink plastic where the sharp corners around the grommets had poked through the cotton covering.

 

As the implications snapped into focus, Kilbane knew he had to have that purse, or at least confirm what he thought it was. Klose would have told him just to take it from her. She had little tolerance for children. But that would draw attention he couldn’t afford if his hunch was right.

 

He’d have to trade for it. He suspected he’d pay a steep price, but if that liner was what he thought, the information alone would prove worth it. He wished Darby was here to make the deal. He knew she would get it for next to nothing. He would likely end up spending the last of his reserves. He ransacked his brain for what might appeal to a four-year-old from his scant time with Emily’s nieces and nephews. That’s when he noticed that she wasn’t watching him; she was watching Shackleton.

 

“Hey, Rose,” he finally called across the street. “Would you like to pet the doggie? If you’re really nice, I’m sure he’d like a treat from whatever’s in your purse.”

 

---

 

That evening, Kilbane examined his bounty by the light of a solar lantern. He hadn’t been able to acquire Rose’s makeshift purse although he’d been willing to offer an exorbitant amount in trade. Chocolate, jam, Emily’s brocade cat purse in exchange. Rose had refused to part with it. She barely let him examine it. Her brother had made it for her birthday and given it to her that morning.

 

Probably for the best he hadn’t gotten it. Someone might have noticed if it went missing. Someone who would trace it back to him. Rose wasn’t supposed to have the pink plastic liner but she adored the color. She had no idea how dangerous it was. Not to her, to her father.

 

Kilbane had gotten a good enough look at it to confirm what it was: the resealable outer packaging from a Humanitarian Daily Ration. Bright pink so they could be easily spotted if airdropped. Changed to pink from the previous bright yellow color that some stable genius had originally chosen, which happened to be nearly identical to the casings of US cluster bombs. Not items you wanted to be confused by refugees you might be trying to help. Especially children.

 

HDRs were subsistence rations, a lot like vegetarian MREs without the variety. The problem was none had ever appeared in the county. If they had, Kilbane would have seen them in trade.

 

And that was the rub, Morten had confirmed through his encrypted comm network over a year ago that the sheriff had been allocated thousands of them for distribution. There were rumors among the locals that the sheriff was hoarding them. But the proof of their existence had never shown up on the island. Until now.

 

Even then, all Kilbane had was a silver wrapper from the shortbread cookies. Not as definitive as the overall packaging but damning enough to create a narrative, if he could convince his team to act on it.

 

They’d gone underground after the sheriff had swept up everyone in the militia who had a military record or had anything suspect in their past, from old social media posts to the wrong party on their voter registration. All for innocuous infractions like unregistered weapons, black market trade goods, and curfew violations. That had gutted Hatch’s militia in the planning phases of their operation.

 

Thankfully, all the operational details had remained behind a veil of need to know. Had the sheriff discovered them, the county would resemble Rosewood or Fort White. Another community erased from the map. Kilbane hadn’t known who had blown them in, and why they grabbed only the militia and not his recon team. Now he did. His patience had finally paid off.

 

This was his opportunity to regather his recon clan. But he hadn’t seen any of his people in a year. He wasn’t certain what kind of reception he’d get. He only knew that Morten was still alive from a dead drop sign he left in the park behind the house each week. Kilbane would set up the countersign tomorrow. He needed Morten to send out the message for a meeting. He needed to risk a face-to-face.

 

For that, someone had to die. Ken Wood would have to be sacrificed. Contingency plans were already in place. LeSean Morris would have to round up a body or at least enough biomass for a cremation. All Kilbane needed was a picture. He’d use the portrait of his best man from his wedding. Anonymity was one advantage of living through the chaos in a densely populated county. It was hard to track down who was who, who was a transplant, and who had been here all along.

 

But first, he needed to confirm that he still had all the pieces to revive the original operation. Some he couldn’t know until he saw which members of his team showed up. If Jen Harris went MIA, the game was likely lost. She was the key that would set the tumblers in motion, which he’d known the day the bank had finally reopened and he’d retrieved the contents of his and Emily’s safe deposit box. As much as he hated laying that much power in one person’s hands, especially a lawyer’s, there had been little way around it. At least she had plausible deniability if the plan slipped sideways, unlike the rest of them.

 

As long as Jen hadn’t done the math in the past year and cracked open the lockbox in her safe. That piece of his contingency plan had been transferred back when they still had some semblance of freedom of movement in the county, just as it was becoming obvious that Kilbane might be stuck here for the duration. Just after the first rumors of search and seizures had begun to circulate. Just before Katz had entrusted him with a crucial piece of insurance in anticipation of a coup. But long before the militia had been rolled up and shipped off to island detention.

 

Everything would be distributed in legal fashion, which in this case meant blind to Jen by design. Even in the aftermath of an apocalypse, people still penned their last wills and testaments. People still buried their dead. Even the governor hadn’t been able to crack down on death by executive order. If anything, he’d facilitated it.

 

Jen’s role only covered funding the operation. The critical piece, and the most dangerous one should anyone find it, was buried in his backyard. He spent the evening prying up the paver stones just outside the threshold of the door to his screened porch.

 

It didn’t look like much, just a flat manila envelope, double waterproofed in a pair of Ziplocs. It contained a hand-drawn map, a navigation chart. The kind of secret that ancient pharaohs ensured engineers, architects, and construction crews took with them to their early graves. But this was not the kind of information that toppled empires. It was the kind that tipped the balance from a war of position into a war of indirect maneuver. A wild card that no one knew he possessed, not even his recon team.

 

If he played it right, that map could win them a pair of islands, however briefly. Maybe just long enough to remind someone farther west that they were still here, still operational, still waiting for liberation. What had once been a diversion was now the main objective.

 

In the dark, with Shackleton standing guard, Kilbane shifted the map into a new, more accessible location after he had committed as much of it as he could to memory.

 

 

2

 

Eleven days later, Kilbane got ready to mount Emily’s mountain bike for the second time in a week. The first time he’d ridden to see Morton after exchanging contact signals in the park. That time he’d loaded up some trade goods and Ken Wood’s photo, taking Shackleton with him. He’d had to risk an in-person meeting as what he needed was too complex to explain through their established system of signals and blind drops.

 

To wall off part of that risk, Morten would not attend Ken Wood’s funeral. It had taken him several days after their first meeting but all the arrangements had been made. Kilbane didn’t know the ins and outs of Morten’s communications networks and didn’t need to. All that mattered was that he had contacted Jen Harris, along with calling in a favor with LeSean Morris and somehow getting him the photo for the memorial service. From there word would travel to his team through public channels. Thankfully, Morningside Mortuary was centrally located. Still, Kilbane wondered how many of his people would show up.

 

He'd first met LeSean when he was making the arrangements after his father’s death before all this started. Before the meteors, before the coup. They’d just sat down to go over cremation options when the theme of the Addams Family slowly faded in until it began to pervade the otherwise peaceful yet somber consulting room. LeSean had been mortified as he struggled to silence the incoming call on his phone. Back when cell service was still reliable and unmonitored.

 

Kilbane had just laughed. That oddly irreverent ringtone had done more to put him at ease than Morris’s otherwise caring and professional demeanor. He knew at that moment they could easily work together.

 

When he’d pulled together his recon team after the relocation ban, he’d remembered that encounter and had Hall vet LeSean as a local informant and collaborator. His instincts had been right. Always trust a man with a sense of humor.

 

LeSean had proven himself by acting as an intermediary for a couple of low-profile, black market smuggling deals. Then with the increasing risk after the coup, they’d placed him on a one-time future-use auxiliary list. The funeral home setting was much more valuable for something like this. People still died. People still gathered to mourn. Even the sheriff hadn’t outlawed that fundamental human practice. Yet.

 

Kilbane straightened his tie and pulled on his suit jacket. He slipped the last of his unopened pouches of cherry pipe tobacco into the inside pocket opposite his wallet, along with a package of rolling papers.  He folded up the treasure map from the manila envelope and tucked it beneath the liner of his left dress shoe. Beneath the right, he placed the foil package from the humanitarian ration.

 

If the sheriff held to his community policing standards, Officer Fox should be among their chaperones. If not, plenty of other deputies still smoked given the opportunity. An expensive bribe but worth it as a distraction to get his information to Jen. He hated how many moving parts this plan had, and how much of it relied on outsiders but that was the nature of the resistance, and why they’d gone to ground. He just hoped his people all woke up and didn’t find the world overtly changed. He hoped their yearlong slumber had bred complacency in the sheriff but he doubted it. O’Grady had been in power for decades before the meteors fell. He was politically paranoid, as he’d had to be to garner continued reelection in what had once been an evenly divided county.

 

Kilbane pulled on a black satin armband over his jacket sleeve like a somber, mispositioned garter. Shackleton watched him dress with interest, knowing it was unusual, a break in their routine.

 

“Not this time, boy,” he told his canine companion, scrubbing his fingers behind his ears. “I need you to stay and guard the house.”

 

At the words “stay” and “guard” Shackleton’s ears lifted. He then set off on patrol of his interior territory. He’d be fine for the few hours Kilbane was gone.

 

Kilbane retrieved Emily’s bike from the garage, the bike he’d bought her for her last birthday together. A gift she’d enjoyed but hadn’t been able to take north with her. He locked up the house behind him. In the driveway, he’d rolled up his right trouser leg and set off much like his Dublin forefathers before the Easter Rising.

 

Fortunately, the day was cool and dry, not the traditional late-autumn hot and humid before the sea had reclaimed so much of the Florida landscape. Cool enough he would want his suit jacket. The ten-mile pedal up the rail trail would warm him but not enough to break a sweat. He kept his pace at transport rather than exercise level. Fast enough to look like he was going somewhere but slow enough not to appear to be in a hurry. Like he remembered from his Nana’s stories of running courier during the Battle of Springmartin. Always look like you were running an errand or visiting a friend. Because no one biked for recreation anymore unless they’d gone insane.

 

The rail trail took him halfway to his destination. The rest he did on surface roads. Unlike before, the biggest threat to cyclists now came from pedestrians armed for ambush rather than inattentive motorists. Thankfully, much of his route took him through the well-patrolled corridor from the sheriff’s Emergency Operations Center to the municipal airpark that had been converted to a Naval Air Station after the old Coast Guard air base, once the largest and busiest in the nation, had submerged along with every other major runway in the area. The Air Force Base, the international airport and its smaller regional counterpart, the general aviation airfield downtown, all had been reclaimed by the Gulf. The current airstrip was barely long enough to land cargo planes. But it had all the infrastructure needed to support a squadron of H-60 helicopters.

 

Kilbane’s route deftly avoided straying too close to either of the heavily guarded endpoints. They marked a low-crime corridor that he took advantage of after he’d exhausted the rail trail that ran beside the chain of parks starting behind the house which he knew to be an avenue for black-market smuggling. But only at night. In broad daylight, he’d be observed but left unmolested. Not that he didn’t have half a dozen contacts among the smugglers anyway. His black armband served as a signal to those inclined to remember.

 

The ride went smoothly. The day was pleasant, the pick of the week. It took an hour to cover the distance. The only souls he shared the road with were boys on the backroads and girls on the open thoroughfares, both likely carrying messages while running family errands. Contraband moved after dark. A handful nodded to him amicably but to the casual observer, he ignored them. Two he shot hand signals that he might be passing back through near sunset, just in case.

 

As he drew closer to the Morningside Mortuary, he kept an eye out for helicopter traffic at the air station. Even after the Coast Guard had been folded back under the Navy, its mission hadn’t changed. Drug and migrant interdiction, search and rescue, though now almost exclusively for the Navy and other official government transport. The islands that had been the peninsula remained a strategic outpost. More so now that the lower third of Florida was underwater and the port of Tampa had been relocated upriver toward the old Executive Airport. They’d jury-rigged cranes onto the interstate overpasses to serve as a cargo terminal, now the farthest south in Gulf.

 

But the Coasties’ political leanings hadn’t much changed last he’d heard. They were still bitter about their commander being forcibly detained by the governor. A respected officer stripped of her rank and authority for what they saw as the wrong letter after her name and the wrong box checked on her religion. Three strikes with her gender.

 

The governor had been looking for any reason to break away from the rest of the country since the election and the pandemic. With the meteors, he’d found it, along with a dozen of his closest neighbors. Ironically, all climate change deniers who had refused to admit sea level rise was real. A hard position to maintain once everything from Lake Okeechobee south was underwater. Millions had been displaced. Millions on the move.

 

When the meteors fell, so too had a curtain across large swaths of the democracy. After which their previously failed insurrection had phoenixed into a full-blown coup.

 

Thankfully, the sheriff was still responsible for crime control on the main island and ran the detention camp on its neighbor to the south. Leveraging those territorial disputes and underlying loyalties was key to Kilbane’s plan.

 

As he rode north, he passed by two large city parks whose greenspaces had been converted to agriculture. The only reason the county park behind his house hadn’t been yet was that it had too many trees, too many stumps to be removed. Not that that would be a problem much longer with the sheriff mandating compulsory labor from anyone previously receiving public aid. A labor pool that grew larger by the day as relief supplies were withheld. Their lives were reduced to sharecroppers on the village green toiling in the sun beneath broadbrimmed hats and kerchiefs, haying that last of the previously harvested crop before the fields lay fallow. Kilbane tried not to pay much notice so as not to draw attention from the posse guarding them. Those amateurs needed little excuse.

 

When he arrived at Morningside, the nearby airstrip just north of it was quiet. No training runs, which reflected the state’s current fuel shortage. Rumor had it the pipelines from Texas and Louisiana would soon come back online now that the Seminoles had been cleared out. But that rumor had persisted for more than a year, likely seeded by the governor. Once it transitioned to truth, his recon team’s position would become untenable.

 

He couldn’t quite get sight of the sole runway from three blocks away and didn’t dare stray closer, not today. Especially now that his destination was in sight. Oddly, he saw no uniformed community officer waiting, a huge stroke of luck if it held. So, he quickly locked Emily’s bike to a column in the portico where the hearse would have once parked when gas had been freely available.

 

As he tugged the chain to ensure the lock was set, Kilbane heard a familiar voice behind him.

 

“Well, if it isn’t the county’s last true Republican.” The voice startled him until he recognized it. Fox. The greeting was an old joke based on a misunderstanding of his Nana’s role in the Troubles. Fox had never really gotten the punchline and Kilbane had never enlightened him.

 

Kilbane unhurriedly unrolled his pant leg before he turned to greet the other man. “Officer. I see they’ve still got you doing community service.”

 

A shadow of annoyance passed over Fox’s face but quickly passed. Perhaps that jibe now struck too close to home.

 

“Still doing my part to make sure you reprobates don’t get up to something.” Fox glanced at the side door to the funeral home. “Good turnout for a guy no one seems to know.”

 

Kilbane shot up an eyebrow. “Some of us knew him better than others. Ken was the best man at my wedding.”

 

Fox scowled at him, clearly dubious.

 

Kilbane shrugged. “Come by the house some time and I’ll dig out our wedding album. I’ll even supply the coffee if you bring the shortbread cookies.” An adventurous dig just to see the man’s reaction.

 

Fox didn’t seem to notice as he straightened his improvised uniform. “Even if I had any, I wouldn’t share them with the likes of you. You’d rob me blind and have them on the black market before the water boiled.”

 

“You wound me, officer,” Kilbane protested, a hand over his heart. “I would never dare on such an occasion. Funerals and weddings are sacred, even in memory.”

 

Another shadow crossed Fox’s face, this one tinged with pity. “I heard about…”

 

Kilbane cut him off with a curt nod of acknowledgment. “Maybe we should skip to the part where you search me before I go inside or the neighbors might think we’re dating.” He nodded over Fox’s shoulder to where a pair of tweenaged girls stood a block away, watching. Far enough that Kilbane knew they could disappear before Fox could harass them but close enough to recognize him.

 

Fox turned his scowl on his previously unnoticed audience.

 

“Suit yourself,” he said as he turned back, only to find Kilbane with both his arms outstretched, his wallet in one hand, his house keys in the other. “Any weapons?” he asked before he started.

 

“You know better than that, officer,” Kilbane admonished. “Besides, it’s not that type of funeral.”

 

Fox started his pat-down thoroughly enough, top to bottom, then paused when he hit the tobacco in Kilbane’s jacket pocket. He reached in and pulled out the cellophane-sealed pouch and rolling papers.

 

“Still up to your old black-market ways, I see,” he said as he waved the pouch like a reprimand. “You know tobacco is considered contraband.”

 

“You’d deny a man a smoke with his friends at his best man’s funeral?” Kilbane set his face in an expression of feigned innocence. But not too feigned.

 

“Without matches or a lighter?” Fox said as he finished fishing around the pocket. Having found what he was looking for, his search became perfunctory.

 

“I must have left them at home.” Kilbane smiled ruefully. “And I suppose that means you’ll punish my forgetfulness by confiscating it.”

 

Fox snuck a glance over his shoulder.

 

“Don’t worry,” Kilbane reassured him, “your wolf’s glare sent the little red riding hoods scurrying.”

 

Reassured the girls had disappeared, Fox deftly tucked the tobacco and papers into his back pocket. Kilbane was certain the man had a light. If not, LeSean would. Which meant he’d be preoccupied for a bit once everyone was inside.

 

“I don’t see any reason to hold you up further. My condolences on your loss,” Fox added as he nodded toward the door.

 

Kilbane slid his wallet and keys back into his pockets, straightened his jacket, and went inside. He was greeted in the side lobby by LeSean Morris.

 

The man was positively imposing. Loomingly tall and broad-shouldered, he could have played defense for the Bucs back when. But he had the gentlest handshake and most reassuringly soft voice of any man Kilbane had ever met. Being raised in the nearby public housing project had made LeSean a master of inoffensiveness by necessity. A skill he’d put to good use with his obviously compassionate nature.

 

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said, still warmly gripping Kilbane’s hand. Then in a more somber tone, he added, “And I’m sorry about your wife. I’m sure they’ll find…”

 

“Thank you, LeSean,” Kilbane cut in, looking around as if hoping to spot a member of his team. “Am I the first?”

 

LeSean shook his head. “The others are already here. I set you up in the small memorial room in the back for privacy.”

 

With a gentle hand on Kilbane’s back, he prepared to guide him that way.

 

Kilbane didn’t move. “First, I need to use your bathroom. It was a long ride.”

 

“Ah,” LeSean acknowledged, deftly sliding his hand away to point. “Down the hall to the left. Your people are in the first room on the right.”

 

“Perfect,” Kilbane said without moving in that direction. Instead, he glanced at the door he’d entered through. “We shouldn’t have to worry about any official community interference for a while. Our minder is on an extended smoke break. Last of the cherry. You might want a piece of that.”

 

Kilbane smiled. LeSean smiled back as he turned toward the side door. “I’ll give you a heads up if his plans change.”

 

In the bathroom, Kilbane removed the items from his shoes and slid each into the corresponding back pocket, buttoning them after. He straightened his jacket and combed his hair back into place before heading to the memorial to meet his team.

 

Inside, Kilbane found a less reassuring welcome as half a dozen heads turned his way. They were spread throughout the room, mostly isolated in individual rows on either side of the aisle. Ken Wood’s picture, now adorned with an embellished metal frame, was perched on the table at the front beside a moderately elaborate urn with candles to either side. LeSean hadn’t skimped on appearances.

 

And it was warm in here, warmer than outside. LeSean must be burning a week’s worth of electricity rations.

 

Rebecca Klose approached to greet him but didn’t reach out or extend a hand. She looked uncertain which was unusual for his XO.

 

“I’m sorry about…” she started.

 

“I know,” Kilbane replied quickly. “Let’s get to it. We don’t have much time.”

 

He surveyed the others, all of whom looked at him with thinly veiled sympathy and concern. They reserved most of their suspicion for each other, wounds he hoped he could heal. But everyone was there with all the required specialties represented. All except Morten which was by design. He’d done his part already by gathering in the clan. And would relay the word west if they succeeded.

 

Kilbane put on his game face as he strode to the front of the room. Becky initially fell in behind him but peeled off to join Catrina Sanchez, who looked at him as though she was evaluating one of her patients for signs of shock. Jay Hall was more coolly observant, quietly soaking in everything around him, as he expected from Intel. Cheryl Darby seemed to be assessing his perceived needs as well as her perceived chances of finally closing the deal, not realizing that would never happen, not even for a night. Tommy Tran glanced around at the others, gauging their reactions, suspicious of his own. Only Genevieve Harris reached out and grasped his hand on his way by. She didn’t seek to slow him; she just let it slip through her fingers as he kept walking. Reassurance from an old friend.

 

Only he and Jen were in suits. Only he wore a tie. The others were dressed more casually but respectfully in varying tones of somber, befitting the occasion. Tommy wore a shirt with a Mandarin collar and a sports coat he’d hooked on the back of the chair beside him. Hall’s button-up was open but his slacks appeared to be wool. Klose was in a skirt, Darby and Sanchez in more practical dress pants, though Darby’s blouse had a loose tie-neck bow. After years in the resistance, they all knew how to dress the part handed to them to camouflage suspicion.

 

At the front row, Kilbane grabbed a chair and spun it toward them. Before he sat, he unbuttoned his left back pocket and fished out its contents. They all watched with a mix of annoyance and apprehension as he concealed the shortbread foil in his hand.

 

“I’m glad you all chose to come today. I’m not sure how long we have, so I’ll cut right to it. The last time we were all together, we were preparing for an operation that was indefinitely put on hold.”

 

“Having an informant in our midst tends to do that,” Tommy Tran interrupted, quickly earning an over-the-shoulder warning glare from Klose three rows away.

 

Kilbane forestalled her with a hand. “I said at the time the traitor wasn’t one of us. I picked each of you personally. I’ve known you individually for a while, or Emily did.” He nodded toward Jen. “But you didn’t know each other so it makes sense you’d be suspicious. I’m your only real connection.”

 

“Everyone has their blind spots, Dave,” Tran persisted, undeterred by Klose’s famous temper. She smoldered but stayed quiet, eying Kilbane to see how he’d react.

 

“I agree, Tommy. Just like everyone has their price.” Kilbane let that statement hang against Tran’s anger before he held up the foil packet concealed in his hand to show the room. “I just figured that no one’s here would be as low as a handful of Humanitarian Daily Rations.”

 

Kilbane held Tommy’s eye. Tran stared back defiantly. Kilbane turned away first, surveying the rest of his team. He found no shame, just more suspicion.

 

“And I was right” he continued, resettling his weight in the padded, straight-backed chair. Comfortable enough that mourners didn’t get fidgety but not so comfortable that they camped out.  “Eleven days ago, I spotted this on Rose Sullivan. She pulled it out of a purse her brother had made her for her birthday from the pink plastic HDR container.”

 

Cat Sanchez opted to help him out, reaching out a hand to lightly touch Klose’s leg and forestall her. “Rose Sullivan? Matt Sullivan’s little girl?”

 

Kilbane nodded. “His youngest. Pudgy as a cherub now. Which says there wasn’t only one.”

 

Klose cursed under her breath, her eyes fixed on Tran. His flush drained to pale. Hall just shook his head in disappointment or disgust. With him, it was hard to tell. All three had recommended recruiting Sullivan from the neighborhood watch into the militia. Hatch had still been vetting his skills when the militia got rounded up. Thankfully, no one from Kilbane’s team had approached Sullivan directly.

 

“How the hell is he still walking around,” Klose asked, shifting to uncross her legs. “Son of a bitch set us up.”

 

“I doubt it,” Kilbane responded. “Sullivan’s not that smart and the sheriff isn’t subtle. We’d all be bunking with Hatch right now if either suspected who or what we are.”

 

“So, when do we terminate the risk,” Hall asked, an arm resting casually on the back of the chair next to his. Klose looked over her shoulder at him and nodded a vigorous second to his suggestion.

 

“We don’t,” Kilbane replied evenly, drawing her eyes back to him. “We need him untouched to revive the plan.”

 

“Revive!?” Tran snapped. “We don’t have the personnel to pull that off.”

 

“Who says we need to?” Kilbane smiled enigmatically.

 

Tran’s disbelief deepened. “In case you aren’t keeping up with current events, Dave, we’re one militia short of making that operation work.”

 

“That’s why you’re going to build another one.” Kilbane continued smiling.

 

Tran just stared at Kilbane as if he’d started speaking his Nana’s Gaelic, and Tran understood nothing but his grandfather’s Vietnamese. After a moment of stunned silence, he voiced the first objection that sprang to mind, trying to draw Darby to his side.

 

“Never mind that every man, woman, or post-pubescent child with any real skill except us is currently rotting in the 22^nd Avenue Detention Center, what are we supposed to use for equipment? All the militia’s caches were rolled up with them.”

 

“Which means this island is awash with illicit weapons unless I miss my guess,” Kilbane observed, his smile broadening. “Jay, have you heard that the sheriff destroyed or dispersed those rifles?”

 

Hall looked troubled. He always did when forced to answer a question without knowing where it led. So, he just shook his head without elaborating.

 

“That’s great,” Klose intervened, clearly exasperated, too. “But we have no cash. Unless you’ve been stocking trade goods behind our backs, or maybe found the sheriff’s pot of HDR at the end of some personal leprechaun’s rainbow.”

 

“I’ll get to that.” Kilbane let her slight slide. Instead, he turned to Darby himself. “Cheryl, you once told me that you could gauge a location’s stability by the price of an AR-15. What’s the going rate on the island now?”

 

Ever the model of clear communication where a bargain was concerned, she asked, “With or without ammo?”

 

“With. Loaded and an extra clip,” he clarified.

 

“About a thousand per, gold standard prices, depending on how many you want,” she said after tallying on her fingers a moment. “Used, variable quality but serviceable.”

 

“That’s somewhere between Kabul and the Capitol Insurrection, right?” Kilbane said.

 

Darby smiled and shrugged. Tran looked nearly apoplectic. Klose had stopped listening. Hall just looked bemused.

 

Sanchez stepped in again to short circuit another outburst. “What good does that do us if we don’t have anything to trade?”

 

Kilbane smiled as he turned toward Jen Harris who, like a good lawyer, was patiently waiting for his argument to unfold. “I think you’ll find Becky’s cousin was quite generous in his will.”

 

Harris returned his smile, hers more of a tolerant, professional mask.

 

At the sound of her name, Klose re-engaged. “What the hell are you talking about? My only cousin is an entitled Zellenial I sincerely hope drowned when West Palm went under.”

 

Kilbane turned to look at her then shifted his gaze pointedly to Ken Wood’s picture on the table behind him.

 

“What are you…” she started as her eyes followed his.

 

Beside her, Sanchez glanced from her friend to Kilbane and started laughing. “You’re the one he’s known the longest, Becky. Face it, sister, he set you up.”

 

Kilbane adopted an expression of pure innocence that used to drive Emily crazy but worked no better on her than on his Nana. “There’s a reason you’re my XO.”

 

“You Machiavellian son of a bitch.” Klose glared daggers at him. “How long?”

 

“Right after the meteors fell,” he replied with a shrug and a smile. “Jen’s had his will since before the coup. Call it a contingency.”

 

“You assured me that will was genuine,” Jen said, as much a question as a statement. Somehow even in the aftermath of an apocalypse, she managed to look professional and proper in her suit, her hands folded demurely in her lap, her posture perfect, her eyes attentive.

 

“You have my word as a witness,” Kilbane replied, one hand over his heart, the other held up as an oath. When she cocked her head, dubious, he added softly, “Emily’s too.”

 

“All of which is great,” Hall said, as relaxed and comfortable two rows away as Jen was professional, “But that doesn’t leave us with an actionable plan.”

 

“I can’t be here for this.” Jen stood quickly, settling her purse on her shoulder and then smoothing her skirt. “What I’ve heard up to now are hypotheticals.”

 

“Let me walk you out.” Kilbane rose as well, slipping the foil packet into his front pants pocket before straightening his jacket. “Then I’ll brief the rest of you on the details.”

 

Back in the side lobby with the door to the memorial room shut behind them, Kilbane removed the papers from his other pocket. He held out the folded sheaf to Harris. “I need you to deliver these to Klose with the contents of your safe.”

 

Jen gave him a measured look but didn’t reach for them. “Do I want to know what’s in those?”

 

He met her eye and held it. “Probably not.”

 

She eyed his offering distastefully, then stood thoughtful for a moment, considering. She unlatched her purse and extracted a small manila envelope from within and handed it to Kilbane followed by a pen.

 

“I’m going to powder my nose.” She nodded toward the bathrooms down the hall. “When I get back, if you were to hand me an envelope with Mr. Wood’s signature across the seal addressed to our Ms. Klose, I would be within my duties to give it to her unexamined. Otherwise, it would be difficult for me to maintain professional detachment. Client privilege no longer much stands with Sheriff O’Grady.”

 

Kilbane smiled and nodded. The moment Jen disappeared around the corner, he unfolded and smoothed the papers. He dropped them in the envelope with a single fold., sealed it, then forged Ken Wood’s signature across the flap. When he turned it over to write Rebecca’s name, he noted the preprinted return stamp of Jen’s law practice. A nice touch for authenticity.

 

He used the same handwriting to address it. A style he’d perfected forging his mother’s signature on absentee notes when he was a kid in school. He was certain it would hold up to any of Ken’s other correspondence if scrutinized since he had written all of it himself.

 

He admired the results for a moment but was troubled by the newness. He quickly poked around in the dark corners behind LeSean’s settees, chairs, and side tables until he found a small cache of dust. He carefully sprinkled it over each side of the envelope and gently brushed it away, knocking down the pristine look without quite smudging it. A detail Emily’s artistic eye would have appreciated.

 

When Jen returned, she accepted his renewed offering and slipped it back into her purse without a second glance. She resettled her purse on her shoulder, and then grasped both of his hands gently, forcing him to face her.

 

“Whatever it is you are about to do, don’t go and get yourself martyred.” Her fingers were surprisingly warm. “That’s not what Emily would want.”

 

Kilbane started to issue a denial but stopped. Jen knew him too well, if only secondhand. Instead, he said, “Next year in Olympia. That was the promise.”

 

Jen smiled wanly, having seen through those words, too. But like his hands, she let it go. She paused before opening the side door and said, “When this is all over, drop by the office. I’d love to hear the inside tale of how it went instead of just rumors for a change. I’ll supply the whiskey.”

 

“You’re on,” he replied. But Emily’s best friend was already walking out the door.

 

---

 

When he returned to the memorial room, Kilbane found the atmosphere transformed. His team had reunited. That was progress. The only problem was it looked like they’d united against him. He had a lot of convincing to do. Even Sanchez gave him a half shrug as if to say she’d tried to play the peacemaker but it was too heavy a lift. He’d have to force the issue.

 

Kilbane strode back to the front of the room, only this time he didn’t sit. Instead, he leaned against the table, ensuring Wood’s picture was still visible beside him.

 

“Before we flesh out the operational details, let’s get this out of the way. It’s been a long year for all of us, some more than others. A long three years really. So, if any of you are no longer comfortable continuing, now’s your chance to walk away. No judgment.”

 

He met each of their eyes one by one. Darby nodded nearly immediately, almost apologetically. Klose stared at him somewhat incredulously then said, “Sure. Why not,” as if it were an admission of defeat. Beside her, Sanchez smiled and agreed. Hall considered him a long moment then inclined his head once. Leaving Tran, who stared him in the eye almost defiantly.

 

Holding his gaze, Kilbane announced, “I’ve already briefed Morten. He’s in.” He then cocked an eyebrow at Tran. The younger man looked away, his mouth set like he’d bitten into an under-ripe Key lime.

 

Before Tran could begin to shake his head, Kilbane addressed him alone, “Remember when we first met, Tommy, and compared notes on how each of our grandparents could still field strip a fifty-cal blindfolded from their time in conflicts half a world away? I think my Nana would have admired your grandfather, even if she vehemently disagreed with his politics. Philosophy aside, I’d like to think if they were fighting a common enemy, they would have worked together first, and then sorted out their differences after. Your call.”

 

Tran looked up at him half abashed, then nodded twice. As if the specter of his agreement echoed in his mind.

 

“Good,” Kilbane said, his gaze now taking in the others again. “First thing, I have a plan but there are a lot of moving parts. As my department heads, I need you all to shoot it full of holes. If we decide the risk isn’t worth the reward, we fall back and bide our time. Just understand, time is now an adversary. Each month that passes with the coup unchallenged ends up legitimizing it. It’s a lot like Ukraine, success is determined by facts on the ground. Right now, Command doesn’t seem to remember we’re here. So, it’s time to remind them.”

 

As Kilbane surveyed their faces again, he saw he had their attention. He saw the barest flicker of rekindled hope.

 

“The original plan,” he continued, placing his palms down beside him on the table, “was to have the militia take over and hold the island as long as they could, hoping someone would send reinforcements before we got rousted. Morten has a direct line of communications to Command, but it’s a one-time cipher. So, we can’t coordinate and have no idea what assets they might have to spare.”

 

He paused when he saw Tran’s brow furrow. “Tommy?”

 

“The first problem I see is the militia,” Tran said, more tightly controlled now. “It will take at least a year to recruit a replacement force. And that’s best case, with a competent cadre to train and lead them.”

 

Kilbane nodded, crossing his legs in front of him at the ankles. “That’s exactly the problem the sheriff knows we face if he doesn’t believe the Resistance is dead.”

 

“He doesn’t,” Hall interjected simply but offered no further explanation.

 

“Which we’ll use against him,” Kilbane continued. “We’ll put out the word that we’re looking for recruits again. Only this time, not too carefully. We want word to leak out like we’re in a rush.”

 

Hall calculated then said, “I can make that work.”

 

“Hold on,” Klose interrupted. “If we’re not recruiting, what do we use for a militia? The sheriff still has at least a thousand officers, if you include auxiliaries. And there are only six of us. Not great odds.”

 

Again, Kilbane nodded. “This is where it gets tricky. We know the sheriff will move the ferry to the detention center if he thinks the terminal here is under threat. The guards on the island are his closest reinforcements. They make up about half his force. So, we create a narrative, leaving him a trail of breadcrumbs. First, our phantom recruiting. Next, we create an uptick in weapons traffic. Finally, Hall seeds a rumor of a popular uprising to seize the ferry terminal. Backed by a second rumor that O’Grady is using it to bring in HDRs from the mainland. We create a flash mob at the ferry terminal like it’s an organic protest.”

 

He shot a questioning look at Hall.

 

“Doable,” his Intel officer said. “But we’ll expose a lot of operatives. I can’t guarantee we’ll have a network left if this goes tits up.”

 

Kilbane grimaced in acknowledgment. “No way around it. Succeed or fail, if we go forward, we’re done as recon for a while.”

 

Darby shook her head. “And we’re funding all this how?”

 

Kilbane smiled and glanced over his shoulder at his best man’s picture. “Ken Wood left our Ms. Klose eighty-seven gold double eagles. Pre-Depression era. Deposited in Jen Harris’s office safe. Even Jen doesn’t know what's in that box, though I’d bet she’s guessed by the weight. A contingency Emily and I cooked up after the travel ban. That should be enough of a war chest for weapons, equipment, and a boat. Plus, some leftover for bribes if we need them.”

 

“And the boat fits in how,” Klose asked. She was their resident naval expert. She’s spent her childhood in a marina on an island. “If you’re talking about storming the detention center, those waters are treacherous on the best of days from the submerged hazards. Never mind the mines. And if the Naval Air Station burns an interdiction flight, all this ends quick.”

 

Kilbane considered taking that conversation with her offline but thought better of it. He’d be hiding enough as it was. Klose wasn’t good with surprises, especially when they came one after another.

 

“With that small treasury in Jen’s safe, there’s also a map and instructions. When the governor mined the approaches to the detention center, he built in a backdoor. Kind of like a postern gate on the backside of the island. Starts at Blind Mouth Bay and wends its way through to Midtown. That gets us a way to feed the militia weapons, who then grab up the ferry. The sheriff’s people have grown complacent. Enough boats have been taken out by mines and submerged hazards that no one even tries anymore.”

 

“The real question is whether they run foot patrols out there on the island,” Tran said, half wondering aloud.

 

“If they do, it can’t be regularly,” Kilbane said. “I don’t think the sheriff knows about the postern gate, never mind the garrison. And they’ve got dozens of miles of shoreline to cover. But it’s a risk.”

 

“So, even if we succeed at liberating the militia and taking the island, what makes you think we can hold it, “Sanchez asked.” There will be a lot of casualties for nothing if we can’t.”

 

“This.” Kilbane smiled again as he held up the cookie packet he retrieved from his front pocket again. “Based on Hall’s intel from the mainland, there have been thousands of daily rations delivered to the sheriff but not distributed. That this is the first we’ve seen says the sheriff’s been stockpiling them. There’s only one place that makes sense: The Emergency Operations Center. Which is why we want to draw their forces away from there to the ferry terminal. Instead of forcing a landing there, we have the militia circle in from the other direction, coming up at the southern tip of the island at the west end of Blind Mouth Bay. From there, it’s only five miles to the EOC. With transport, they can be there before O’Grady can reposition his people. If we liberate that cache of humanitarian aid and distribute it, the population will be on our side, at least for a little while. Food is a marvelous motivator.”

 

Kilbane stopped there and was greeted by a long silence as his team mulled over what he’d said.

 

Tran finally broke the silence. “You weren’t kidding when you said a lot of moving parts. This mission sounds like a high hill to climb. Not sure it’s one I want to die on.”

 

Kilbane considered him a moment. “Both our grandparents took up the fight for seemingly lost causes…”

 

“But they were patient,” Tran countered. “Their struggles went on for years. If one domino here doesn’t fall…” He left the rest unsaid.

 

Kilbane didn’t argue because he knew what Tran was saying was true. Instead, he asked, “You got something better to do?”

 

Tran’s face flushed in anger. “I’m just trying to make sure this isn’t a suicide mission driven by someone’s guilt.”

 

Before Kilbane could react, Sanchez intervened. “I think what Tommy is trying to say is that we all need to be sure we aren’t making decisions clouded by emotion…”

 

“I’m not,” Kilbane asserted in a tone he hoped would end that train of thought. When he saw the skepticism in his team’s eyes, he continued less harshly. “Look. When Emily left to scout new locations, we all thought within a year, we’d evac to the Left Coast. Next year in Olympia, that’s what we told each other to keep going. Three years on, we all know that’s unlikely to happen now.”

 

He paused to let that sink in, then continued. “So, if we can’t get to Olympia, maybe we can bring Olympia to us. I know this is a long shot. But in another year, we’ll look back and wish for what might have been. If you look into your hearts, you know that. We owe it to the people of this island to try. Command left us here because recon is expendable. Let’s prove them wrong. Let’s broadcast a message they can’t ignore.”

 

Kilbane leveled his gaze at each of them again, starting with Klose. Without her, he knew he had no chance. When she shrugged and then nodded, Sanchez fell in with her. Hall just inclined his head. Darby smiled sadly but agreed. Tran shook his head before sighing and then nodding reluctantly.

 

“Ok. Assignments as follows. Darby, you’re on acquisition. Tran will get you specs on weapons and equipment, Klose on the boat. You tell them what we can afford. Hall, you’ve got the hard job, shadow recruitment, rumor seeding, hearts and minds. I need you to make sure both sides show up at the ferry terminal on our timeline. Tap the others as necessary. Sanchez, we’ll need medical backing for the protests with field trauma to clean up at the EOC. There’s no way this doesn’t get bloody. Put in your wish list with Darby but try to keep it small. Tran, by the nature of the operation you’re mainly going to be everyone else’s consultant and errand boy. Sorry about that. But I want you to come up with the rally points and fallback positions once the militia hits the island. Hatch and his people will be out of date and won’t have time. Which means when Klose goes in with the boat, I want you with her. You’ll be our liaison. Morten is still our comms network. Use him sparingly. We need him for the endgame broadcast if this succeeds. Klose, your first job is to coordinate with Jen to get the coins and the map. She’ll be in touch but once that’s done, she’s out of it. You’ll be running the day-to-day with Hall as backup. Use any one-time assets you need. We’re not planning for a tomorrow. This is your operation.” That raised some eyebrows but no objections. “I’ll go over a couple of further details with you offline.”

 

“Any question before we break up?” he asked, anticipating at least one.

 

Hall asked it but it wasn’t the one he was expecting, at least not directly. “You never addressed Klose’s second concern. If the Coast Guard sends their birds, this will be a very short insurrection. Just their cutter could blow the ferry out of the water as it transits the sound. And we haven’t gone over how we’ll get word to Hatch and the militia. This all goes nowhere if they’re not on board.”

 

Kilbane smiled at his observations. Hall was always one for keeping track of the details. Which made him ideally suited to his job.

 

“Both of those fall to me,” he answered. “I’ll set up a greenlight signal with Morten for once Hatch is on board. But first I need to get arrested.”

 

 

3

 

By the time Fox arrived, Kilbane’s petty bribes had paid off. Fox had given him a heads up for what was coming.

 

Which Kilbane had used to transfer Shackleton to Morten, along with enough single-serve Jack Daniels nips to provide for his care and feeding for a long time should the operation go south. Which looked increasingly likely. Not that it mattered to Morten anyway. He would do right by people or animals who couldn’t take care of themselves to the best of his abilities with or without compensation.

 

Kilbane had also handed him a pistol with a small cache of ammunition for safekeeping, which Morten reluctantly accepted, but only with the promise that he would eventually give it back. Guns, especially handguns, were made for only one purpose: killing people. Violence was not an option for Morten, even in these advanced, extreme circumstances. Part of why he stood behind the scenes in comms. From each according to their abilities, Kilbane’s Nana had always said.

 

Shackleton had watched Kilbane with forlorn eyes as he mounted Emily’s bike to return home without him. Morten had taken care of him a few times before the meteors fell, so they knew each other. So, just like the plan, Shackleton would adapt. But he had been Emily’s dog more than Kilbane’s. It had been hard to leave that last piece of her behind, though he knew she would understand. Nonetheless, his vision had blurred when Shackleton barked once, then twice as he rode away. Some canine communication of farewell and an admonishment to return.

 

I will buddy, Kilbane thought bitterly. If I can, I will.

 

A couple of days later, Fox showed up with two deputies and a handcart to arrest Kilbane and collect his ill-gotten gains. The charge was black market profiteering.

 

Fox’s warning to Kilbane wasn’t altruistic. It was ostensibly to allow him to get his affairs in order, including finding a home for Shackleton but at a cost of ten percent. For which Kilbane had been grateful. Otherwise, one of the deputies would have ended up with Shackleton. Or the dog would have been shot if he’d protested too much at their incursion into his territory. Or butchered for meat. And Kilbane would have had to let that play out or tip his hand.

 

Fox took the first pick of Kilbane’s trade goods while the deputies turned a blind eye as they arrested him. Not everything, that would draw too much notice. Just the best and most valuable. All of his remaining tobacco, which wasn’t much, along with his grandfather’s pipe. Plus, the railroad watch he’d inherited, one of them anyway. The rest, at least what was visible, would confiscated by the sheriff under an emergency extension of the old drug forfeiture laws. Kilbane was certain the two deputies would see a cut.

 

He had hidden two small caches of goods and equipment as a desperation contingency. The first, with the most common items, was meant to be found when the deputies searched the house more thoroughly. That included the other half of his stash of ammunition. A rich enough find, and buried deeply enough that they might stop looking. The second was a combination of survival goods and enough of the best, least seen, most compact trade goods he owned. Not that he expected anything would go back to the way it was no matter how the operation turned out. But enough to keep Jen on her feet for a bit if it all went badly.

 

Which it had almost immediately. Hall had picked up rumors that the O’Grady’s people were disgruntled about something, something he couldn’t pin down, at least not before Kilbane’s clockwork plan had been set in motion. There was no way to delay now, and no way to call it back. He reminded himself that no plan ever survives first contact. Like Shackleton, they all would have to adjust.

 

While the deputies secured the house, Fox informed him that he would be transferred to the 22^nd Avenue Island Detention Center to await trial. A trial Kilbane knew would never come. Fortunately, O’Grady was no longer conducting summary executions after cursory field trials by deputy tribunals. The sheriff hadn’t earned the nickname The Judge lightly.

 

Fox gave Kilbane a perfunctory pat-down for weapons and other contraband, which once again left the shortbread cookie foil in his shoe undetected. That and Shackleton had been worth the commission in trade goods. As had Fox’s reassurances that he’d at least lock up the house once the search was finished. Kilbane was much more circumspect about how that would turn out, knowing his neighbors were discreetly watching through the slits of drawn blinds, but there was nothing he could do about it. Morten had one spare key, should the doors survive. Jen had the other.

 

After they handcuffed Kilbane, the deputies loaded him into an all-electric SUV and drove him to the last remaining sheriff’s office on the island, formerly the administrative building. The old county jail, along with the central courthouse complex, was underwater beside the airport.

 

On the drive, Kilbane had a chance to scope out security. The once open-access parking lot was now a maze of checkpoints, concrete barricades, and sandbagged redoubts extending well out into the roadway fronting the complex. The guards here were armed with the department’s small inventory of M16s. Most were fully armored in bulletproof vests and tactical riot gear. The approach to the Emergency Operations Center, tucked behind the towering main building, was guarded by the Swat team’s APC. The low-slung, bunkerlike, hurricane-rated building was now surrounded by double fencing adorned with concertina wire, with weapons emplacements atop the corners of the roof. It reminded Kilbane of a medieval donjon, the final stronghold within some of the castles he’d toured with his Nana when they’d ventured across the Irish Sea to visit his Welsh cousins.

 

He didn’t have much time to study the defenses or identify any tactical weaknesses. All too quickly, his captors parked before the entrance to the looming three-story building, out of sight of the road behind a reinforced concrete wall. But not before he caught a glimpse of the two helicopters perched on the pad to the east. Right beside the solar farm that ran their vehicle charging stations, across from the convenience store gas station that had long ago been declared de facto eminent domain. At a glance, one helo was either down for full overhaul maintenance or was being cannibalized for parts.

 

Before he could determine which, his escort quickly and efficiently whisked him inside where he was immediately diverted to a security area and then shuffled through a labyrinth of corridors into a series of rooms where he was booked, searched again but not thoroughly, photographed, and processed before being shoved into a tiny two-man holding cell.

 

Kilbane spent three restless nights in that cell with a second detainee. He assumed the man was an informant, so he kept their conversation to a minimum, at least of useful information. A neat trick in a six-by-eight space with a pair of bunks, a toilet that doubled as a sink, and nothing but thin rations to occupy their time. There wasn’t even enough room for one of them to pace, never mind stretch or exercise. He had considered using the man to seed some of Hall’s rumors but his instincts said to let the opportunity pass unclaimed. Too high risk. Too direct a connection.

 

His suspicions were confirmed the third morning.

 

The deputies awakened them by dragging their batons across the bars like a child’s xylophone composed of only one flat note. Kilbane knew it was early both by how groggily he returned to consciousness and by the quality of silence in the holding area once the racket stopped. Just long enough for the deputies to shout insistent orders.

 

By then there were eight inmates in the four double-occupancy cells. When the door to Kilbane’s cell clanged open, he and his cellmate quickly spilled out of its cramped confines into the narrow hallway where they were lined up with the others and shackled in four-point restraints.

 

Once all eight of them had been secured, they were quick-marched through the facility and out a side door to a loading area where an armored electric transport van waited. Dawn had yet to crack the door to morning. Daylight was at least an hour away.

 

Sharp, perfunctory, sometimes seemingly contradictory orders punctuated by cracks of batons against concrete or flesh kept them moving or still without a moment to truly register what was going on, never mind formulate a plan to resist. They barely paused before they were loaded inside the van and their shackles locked to the hoops welded to the bare metal floor.

 

The air outside was cold and damp. Even inside the van, the prisoners could see their breath emerge in misty puffs from the sudden exertion after days of inactivity. Kilbane saw his cellmate unsuccessfully suppress his shivering as they waited for their driver and the escort guards who now smoked and engaged in low conversation in the loading area with emergency lights pooling around them. They cast furtive glances at their wards as if they were errant school children waiting on a bus for some imminent bell or field trip.

 

Then, as if, by some prearranged signal, all the deputies glanced at their watches, and ground out their cigarettes just in time for the side door to the facility to crash open again. Another five shackled prisoners were herded toward the van. More awake now, Kilbane noted the chaotic efficiency of the guards’ method. A near-perfect amount of shouting and sudden sharp noise to keep the half-awake line of prisoners off-balance and compliant by being completely reactive. Even from the relative security offered inside the van, it took him a moment to register the new prisoners streaming past his window were all female.

 

One of his compatriots from the holding area noticed once they were inside and being driven toward the back rows of the van. He made a crude remark and extended a shackled hand as far as he could toward the aisle as he levered the other against the seat before him, spreading his fingers to reach what he could not grasp, or grope. Which earned him two quick baton blows against the tubular metal of the seat in front of him to refocus his attention forward. The deputy misaimed by a fraction, pinching one of the prisoner’s meaty fingers between metal and wood. Kilbane suspected he had miscalculated by the way his eyes widened for an instant before his professional mask settled back in place. Half an inch more and it would have shattered bone. As it was, an angry blood blister welted before the man could snatch his hand away.

 

The prisoner didn’t cry out or react more than by clamping his lips on the side of his finger and sucking it noisily, all while shooting a fiery look at the deputy that promised vengeance should the opportunity arise. Kilbane noted that one would be trouble. As did the other deputy who hesitated just the barest instant before settling in a seat at the front of the van after his partner had secured the women in the back. That man dropped into the seat just behind the driver as all the other guards exited and hurried back to the warmth inside.

 

There was no further delay. Once the loading door to the transport was shut and secured, the vehicle began snaking its way out of the complex. Before they hit the exit onto the public streets, they’d picked up escort SUVs front and back.

 

In the half-light of predawn, they slowly wound their way north then east, sticking to the otherwise empty main thoroughfares. They didn’t descend much but soon found themselves winding through surface streets until they climbed onto the southbound approach of the old Bayside Bridge. Daybreak had just begun to orange the tops of the surrounding trees and buildings.

 

The bridge had been converted into two ferry terminals, collocated but separate. Each used a different span that led to and from the flooded, swampy remains of the regional airport. The former northbound lanes, the side closest to the sound, served as a pier for the barges and small cargo ships that supplied the island’s minimum daily needs. An offramp had been repurposed as a terminal for the large Marine landing craft that had been pressed into service from a reserve base across the bay where it was making a port of call when the meteors fell. The southbound lanes, separated by a dozen meters of open water, and now with a fence topped with razor wire, served as the secure ferry terminal to the detention center. Their destination.

 

By the time they’d cleared the checkpoints, sunlight sparkled off the water in sharp, bright shards. A northeast wind stirred small, jagged peaks across the sound. Sunlight didn’t so much warm the air as knock back the cold a notch from below freezing to just above. More deputies hustled the prisoners out of the transport toward the old cross-bay ferry that O’Grady had appropriated, now moored at the half-submerged onramp that served as a quay. Across the flat back stern of the twin-hulled boat, a name had been mostly painted out until only a black Roman numeral III remained offset to one side. An ominous symbol in the post-Insurrection era.

 

As the line of prisoners was driven like cattle toward the ferry, Kilbane caught the barest hint of warning as the man with the damaged finger turned before he lunged at the deputy who had struck him. A chaos of shouts and blows immediately erupted, as one cluster of deputies attempted to pry the prisoner from his prey. Another group scrambled to shepherd the remaining prisoners down the gangplank and inside the main compartment of the ferry that might have seated a hundred, quickly locking each in place as they had been in the van, two chairs apart. Women on one side of the aisle, men on the other.

 

After leaving a small rearguard contingent, their escorts trotted back outside to rejoin the fray. In the confusion of the melee, Kilbane nearly missed that his cellmate had disappeared.

 

The prisoner the deputies finally subdued had not. After a brief, baton-laden struggle, four guards dragged him bloody and groaning through the main compartment with his feet trailing. They continued out a door to the forward deck outside, where they secured him to one in a line of chairs for the trip, face to the frigid wind. On their way back, one tapped another and hooked a thumb toward the rows of prisoners.

 

“What about them? We never did search them again.”

 

The other man dabbed some blood off his uniform as if just noticing it, but only managed to smear it.

 

“Let the Third do some work on the other side for a change. It’s their skins now, as they like to remind us.”

 

All but three deputies returned to the quay. That trio sat across from the prisoners but otherwise paid no attention to them.

 

Within minutes Kilbane felt a slight unsteadiness as the ferry unmoored. The engines fired to life as the boat trawled between the bridge and the submerged shore, keeping the pilings close until it motored under the raised central span and out into the former bay.

 

On the open water of the sound, the pilot opened up the engines some. Not full throttle, but enough for the twin-hulled, maybe hundred-foot configuration to slice through the choppy water efficiently. Peering past the guards to the sloped front windows, Kilbane wondered if the man strapped on the open-air bow would live to see their destination once shock and the cold set in.

 

He shifted his gaze toward the information he would need to survive. To his left, he spotted the official occupation notice bolted to the wall. No one had thought to tear it down from its frame. 149 passengers, who Kilbane distantly remembered had been allowed to carry a reasonable number of personal possessions, including bikes, when the ferry was a public conveyance shuttling tourists between the sister cities across the bay. He wondered how many crew on top of that but the fine print was too far away to read. Call it one-fifty personnel with equipment. Likely more people than guns. But a hundred fifty bordered on a company without specialists or heavy weapons. With trained soldiers and surprise that just might be enough. If Hall’s people could seize the landing craft that he’d spotted at the unsecured dock, they could bring more reinforcements back in a hurry.

 

Kilbane now turned his attention to watching the landscape beyond the side windows slip by. He tried to adopt an expression somewhere between anticipation and mild dread at the journey ending for the sake of the guards. In reality, he was calculating travel times.

 

He remembered the day he and Emily had taken a trip across the bay on a lark when some of the degenerates from college had rolled into town. He vaguely remembered it took about an hour. More time than driving across the bridge but without the hassle of traffic or parking, and the perk of a pay-as-you-go bar to kill the time. That January day had been unseasonably warm but not hot. Shirtsleeve weather unless you were out on deck. Now the wind in your face in early December risked hypothermia unless you were properly bundled.

 

Kilbane stole another glance through the windows at the man strapped to the seat on the forward deck. Unless there was unexpected medical attention waiting when they landed, he doubted he’d survive. Perhaps he was meant to serve as an example. More likely, he was just the latest byproduct of the state’s steady return to the realpolitik inspired by Chain-gang Chuck, a throwback himself to an even darker era of inequality and strife before his eventual politically inspired epiphany. His Nana had choice words for men like him but she always cautioned that an ally was an ally, no matter the road he’d taken to eventually stand beside you. Although, she said, in the words of an altogether different breed of republican, it was always best to trust but verify.

 

Which he now tried to do with his calculations. Distance over water was not his forte. But the distance versus time and speed equation didn’t much care about the transport medium, at least for the estimates he need. So, he counted measured seconds as he watched the submerged terrain slide by like the abandoned ruins of Chernobyl crumbling from oxidation and neglect, leaking toxins into the surrounding water.

 

From the landmarks he remembered, he calculated the ferry wasn’t going much faster than that trip across the bay before the meteors fell. His memory of the map told him it was about the same distance to a landing if they looped around the island the other way. If it took them a casual hour to reach their destination with casting off, docking, and close-in navigation, he figured they might be able to cut that in half if they ran full throttle. If they had the fuel. If they had a clearly marked channel. If they had a trained, experienced pilot. A lot of uncertainty.

 

Kilbane wished he could consult with Klose. She was the water baby. He was always more comfortable with his feet firmly on the ground.

 

Through the front windows, another sight caught his eye. Dead ahead two double-arched roadways rose from the water like a pair of croquet wickets some giant hand had set out in the former bay. The ferry slowed as it angled to slip beneath the pair of them. It remained startling to think that the causeways that had connected either end to what had once been two peninsulas had so quickly transformed into navigation hazards. Even the higher, flat decking of the approaches was now awash. Their guardrails served as a modest breakwater judging from the choppiness that was slightly becalmed to the leeward side. Light poles along the approaches served as omens of the topography of the structures below the surface. Dotted lines connected the archipelagos of houses and buildings in the littoral zone, now tethered by invisible, ephemeral chains. The remains of the bridges rose like the low coils of a snaky monster from beneath a shallow sea.

 

As they approached the first set of spans, Kilbane noted a lookout on deck signaling a watchman on the bridge span island. As they passed beneath, he spotted a small boat tied to a piling with a rusty maintenance ladder leading to the top. When they cleared the second set of spans, he began a new timing calculation. If word got back to the main island that they’d stormed the ferry in detention, as he had to assume it would, this would be the first point the sheriff could confirm it had gone rogue. If they had positioned another watchman on the remains of the bridge over the former mouth of the bay, another reasonable assumption, the sheriff would know exactly where they’d gone, if not where they were headed. Seizing the watch post would add a massive complication. But he wasn’t certain they could offset the disadvantage of another moving part with stealth or speed. All he could do was note the information and leave it to a professional to tell him what it meant.

 

Once they cleared the lower pair of bridge spans, the pilot opened up the throttle more. Kilbane focused on counting in his head, keeping track of individual minutes with the position of his fingers.

 

Roughly fifteen minutes later, the ferry began to slow. Through the side windows to his right several three-to-four-hundred-foot residential towers loomed, marking the city’s former downtown prosperity. Most now had their feet at least wet. One with its foundation completely submerged leaned conspiratorially over the water, awaiting time or tide to repurpose it as a massive navigation hazard, a new shoal or reef. Woe to any boats nearby when that transformation took place.

 

By now the ferry had turned toward the second island that comprised the county. With what amounted to man-made mangroves lining its shoreline, initially, Kilbane wasn’t sure exactly where they were. Perhaps the inlet by the old university marine science pier that had formed a small commercial harbor. That wharf was long submerged, but the channel had once been dredged. Deep enough for small cruise ships and NOAA research vessels.

 

The ferry slowed again to near idle speed and hooked back to the north and west. Kilbane confirmed their location as it skirted the shoals of the submerged runway of the small general aviation airport before they entered the channel. The rotted rooftops of the university and federal support buildings seemed to float above the waves, their absence marking the short, narrow passage.

 

Their initial approach pointed the ferry directly at the five-story children’s medical research facility with a giant, painted band-aid adorning its upper wall as iconic art. That struck Kilbane as a graphic representation of the country's current situation. Adhesive butterflies attempting to hold closed gaping wounds so long infected that necropsy had set in and now needed to be carved out. He could only hope that his scalpel remained sharp and onshore.

 

At first, it appeared the ferry would head straight for that appropriated facility by the most direct route. Kilbane remembered from Emily’s time working downtown that here the land rose quickly. Not quite like the once sixty- and now thirty-foot bluffs on the opposite side of the north island from which he’d embarked, but fast enough that the old hurricane evacuation zones could change by two levels within a city block. Several blocks to his left, a hospital complex, repurposed as a military barracks, remained high and dry. To the right, the satellite campus of the state university with its recently constructed dorms and quadrangles was awash through the second floor. In the block between lay an inundated independent journalistic institute, long defunct.

 

Instead of dodging through the gridwork maze of roofs and flooded buildings, the ferry motored over a once-bayside park at trawling speed, then turned due north. That’s when Kilbane noticed someone had painted the exposed streetlight poles in highly reflective marine-grade paint to serve as channel markers.

 

The ferry eased north for several blocks. He thought they might be headed for the old interstate spur that now descended like a boat ramp to the north and west, similar to the one they’d departed from. Until they slowed further beside the exposed second story of a small federal science complex, reversed half their engines, and skillfully pivoted left to align with a new four-lane avenue pointing west. Like a maritime cavalry gate of an old medieval fortress, nothing could quickly pass in or out without taking fire from the surrounding, half-submerged buildings.

 

Ahead to the left, he spotted their final destination, a recessed second-floor pedestrian bridge between the two northmost buildings of the government complex, their exposed walls stained halfway up as a high-water mark from storms and tides. The walls and windows had been stripped away from the connecting structure to create a short, open-air pier with shadowed gateways leading to either building. The ferry pilot expertly cozied up and was tied off. Gangway stairs lowered from the platform to the deck.

 

The deputies seated before Kilbane finally stirred. Two exited onto the bow to confer with their counterparts who had descended onto the deck without so much as a by your leave. While he couldn’t hear even the murmurs of their exchange, he could see the tension in their body language. The deputies were marked by their dark, law enforcement greens, the shore guards in camo-ed military fatigues, their faces concealed by gaiters or balaclavas. That was new. Perhaps the source of Hall’s warning.

 

After a brief, animated debate, the military guards removed the man from the chair on the deck and muscled him up the gangway stairs. Kilbane could just turn his head enough to see them disappear through the eastern archway.

 

A moment later the deputies returned to prepare the remaining prisoners for transfer of custody. As they milled about awaiting some unseen signal to begin, another squad of military guards arrived on deck and the deputies went back out to confer.

 

Now that he had a little time to study them side by side, Kilbane noted the difference between the two groups of guards. The deputies’ uniforms were neat, clean, and generally squared away despite the obvious signs of wear. The military uniforms were newer but donned more haphazardly. Where the deputies were relaxed but alert and seemed comfortable with their authority, the newcomers strutted and postured as if their fatigues represented all the respect they needed and deserved. Or maybe just desired.

 

That’s when he spotted the unit patch on their shoulders. A simple, black on olive Roman numeral III. Just like the modified name of the ferry. Unlike the deputies who still had an American flag perched on their shoulders with whatever irony that represented, these men, and they were all men unlike their counterparts, had the distinctive red-on-white diagonal cross with the Seal of Florida on their opposite arm. The infamous Third Battalion of the Florida State Militia, fresh from suppressing the camps. The private volunteer military gifted to the governor by his pet legislature, under his sole authority, neatly avoiding any federal entanglement in the chain of command. When they had been mustered just before the meteors fell, their ranks had swelled with Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and other amateur insurrectionists. Their unit marker was the ultimate homage to their roots, the seditious symbol of the Three Percenters adopted as a point of pride.

 

Their presence changed everything. It meant the governor had taken personal control of the detention center. Either to expand it or consolidate it, or maybe both. Kilbane couldn’t decide whether he’d arrived too late or just in time. Perhaps he could use it to create a sense of urgency with the remains of the militia. One he now keenly felt.

 

Worn down by sleep disruption, discomfort, and tedious waiting, Kilbane found his eyelids attempting to flutter shut. Instead of fighting it, he gave in briefly, hoping a quick catnap might give him the edge he needed to survive his next encounter intact, whatever that might be. His alternative was to let his mind spin on unknowable possibilities and grind itself down. He understood from hard-won experience that there were times when being alert and adaptive outweighed any amount of preplanning and mental preparation. A true soldier can sleep anywhere, at any time, taking an offered opportunity that might not come again.

 

He had no idea how long he’d slept when they finally came for him. Long and deep enough that the boot suddenly kicking his foot left him more lethargic than refreshed. It took a moment and another more insistent kick to remind him where he was. The transition from sleep to waking was like thinking through molasses.

 

That vanished the moment two soldiers, each with a rifle slung across a shoulder, manhandled him out on deck. While he’d been asleep, the clouds had returned, low and looming. The temperature had dropped back below freezing since they’d boarded. The frigid air stung his exposed cheeks like a slap, bringing him fully back to razor-keen awareness like the sharp-edged contours of the scene before his eyes.

 

Kilbane was the last of the prisoners hustled up the stairs to the exposed platform of the sky bridge. None of the others was any longer within sight. Where they had gone, left or right, east or west, he couldn’t say. Nor did he have the time to consider as the guards shoved him toward the shadowed opening to his right.

 

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, not to the lesser light but to the small increase in warmth, maybe just the lack of wind. They watered briefly in relief. Like moving from an icy breeze off of the Irish Sea into a sheltered lee at the remote stone circles, cairns, and ancient Celtic battlefields he’d visited with his Nana and Welsh cousins.

 

He stumbled at the threshold between light and shadow only to be shoved from behind as encouragement to keep moving toward his fate. When his eyes finally cleared after he’d regained his balance, he found himself in a large, open room he now recognized from a downtown open house as the second-floor auto shop of a long-dead dealership now repurposed thrice over, first as an art studio, then a federal science complex, and now as a prison processing center. All the cubicles had been cleared although their indentations in the scroungy carpet remained. As did the offices lining the outer walls. Dead ahead, a stairwell scissored down to meet the dark, risen waters just below a midway landing that looked to have recently been awash. The image of a drowning pool from a sacred Celtic well stuck with Kilbane as the guards roughly steered him around it. Then past a line of closed doors, one of which barely contained a sobbing female voice within.

 

At the corner of the north and west lines of outer offices, the guards stopped him, unshackled him, and expertly stripped him to his boxers, arranging his clothes in a neat pile on the floor. Though he recognized the tactic, the shock of cold air on his bare skin was both physically and mentally intimidating. But not so much that he spared a glance at his shoes beside his jeans, where the silver foil from the humanitarian aid packet remained secreted beneath the insole. If the guards found it, they found it. He’d just have to adapt. But no sense seeding them with the idea of where to look by staring.

 

Instead of hustling him into the office right away, one guard rapped on the door and then entered without Kilbane hearing a response from within. Leaving him outside with the second guard, suppressing a shiver, his bare feet on the low, grubby, stained office carpet that he now noticed had been laid down in squares. A tiny, damp corner of one tile curled up beside his toes.

 

After a long, cold moment the other guard reemerged. He hooked a thumb behind him. The second guard guided Kilbane inside by the arm. He caught the other man bend down in his peripherals, presumably to either search or retrieve his clothes.  He hoped the latter. The see-your-breath air combined with a lack of food and decent sleep drained his resistance to the cold quickly. He didn’t have time to dwell on it as he was ushered inside.

 

He found himself staring at the straight-shouldered back of the field jacket worn by a man standing behind a real wood desk, something exotic, walnut or mahogany, maybe teak. Old and dinged enough to have been scrounged from the offices, but still the pick of the litter. Likely someone’s personal piece brought into the office to make it feel more like home, it now acted as a calculated sign of authority and privilege.

 

Unlike the guards, the man at the corner windows was not a slovenly soldier. Like his posture, his uniform was crisp and clean, down to the gig line of his shirt, pants, and belt when he finally turned around. He was clean-shaven and had a severe military fade haircut that left his dirty blond hair poised like a bristle brush. He flicked a hand casually to dismiss the guard, a reminder of their respective statuses.

 

Kilbane noted a gold oak leaf patch of rank central to his camo jacket but no nameplate. He considered how to play that knowledge for a split second then opted to seize the initiative and attempt to throw the man off-guard. Maybe he would reveal something unintentionally.

 

“What can I do for you major,” Kilbane asked conversationally as if standing in a peer’s doorway at work, professionally dressed rather than stripped to his underwear as if in a notorious dream.

 

The only reaction the man gave was a slight hesitation accompanied by a couple of rapid blinks as he reset his expectations. Then he smiled coldly. Unlike his uniform, his voice was pockmarked and gravelly. “I think the question is what I can do for you, Block Captain Kilbane.”

 

It was now Kilbane’s turn to mentally recalibrate. Holding the man’s eye, he responded as quickly as he was able. “I think you have me confused with someone else.”

 

Inside he was reeling. Even his team didn’t know he’d been assigned an equivalent rank by Command when he’d set up his recon unit, though he had not been granted a full commission. The major might not have all his details right, thinking he was in command of a block in the neighborhood watch, but his intelligence was close. Too close. If he tracked it back to Kilbane’s covert time in Ukraine collecting data to feed into the combat simulations, or to Morten’s comm networks, he’d be a dead man. On a long, slow, painful walk.

 

“You’d better hope not,” the major replied with an odd combination of skepticism and certainty that made his point clear. “If you’re the man I think you are, I can make your time here with us comfortable. Food, shelter, luxuries, companionship if you want it. Even the odd liberty to the mainland, supervised of course. I understand your wife is missing.”

 

Clothing, maybe, Kilbane thought, keenly aware of how much of his guard against the cold lay outside. Instead, he quipped, “Connections like that make me wonder who you pissed off to get assigned to receiving at 22^nd Avenue Detention.”

 

“I volunteered for it, in fact,” the major said with a hint of pride, his shoulders straightening slightly further if that was possible.

 

“So, a case of pure self-loathing,” Kilbane bantered back. “Because I can assure you no one asks to end up here.”

 

That earned a pause as the man pieced together the insult, followed by a belated glare. Left without a timely follow-up, the major redirected the subject back where he wanted.

 

“I know all about your ties to the resistance. They may style themselves as a militia but they are nothing but a collection of malcontents and black-market smugglers, rounded out by the usual tribe of oath-breakers and Antifa anarchists who think they’ve found a cause.”

 

“Let me guess,” Kilbane said, desperately trying to keep the shiver from his voice, “You want me to be your creature, your sheepdog in sheep’s clothing. And those are my treats for walking nice and not straining at the leash.”

 

“I’m glad your intelligence lives up to your reputation, Kilbane.” The major smiled malevolently.

 

“One problem, major,” Kilbane continued, although he could feel the cold dulling his mental edge. “Rumor has it this island is run like a Brazilian prison. You only control what’s in sight of the gate, or in this case, the hospital complex. And anyone cowering in the shadow of your ‘protection’ is unlikely to have information worth your reward.”

 

Unable to control his voice as his jaw began to quiver from cold, he left the rest unsaid.

 

“I think you underestimate me,” the major responded, now clearly enjoying Kilbane’s discomfort. “I am not Judge O’Grady. I’m not in this for a cut of the profits. My men will bring this island to heel soon enough. When they do, I will remember who was part of the problem, and who was part of the solution.”

 

Why do I expect you mean ‘final solution’. Kilbane still had the good sense to only think that as he unsuccessfully suppressed another shiver.

 

“Too bad I can’t help you,” he said instead, his voice now quavering. “It sounds like such a tempting offer. I guess I’ll just have to take my chances in general population.” Kilbane swept a hand toward the windows, the edges of which he now noted were spiderwebbed with frost. The sight started him shivering uncontrollably, beginning as twitches in the large muscles of his legs and shoulders and then spreading against his will.

 

“Too bad for you indeed,” the major replied as he watched Kilbane shake. “But if conditions on the ground change your mind…”

 

He was interrupted by another rap on the door, which Kilbane heard open behind him. The major’s fingers twitched impatient permission as he glared over Kilbane’s unsteady left shoulder. The guard circled Kilbane then the desk. He whispered something behind his hand into the major’s ear, then handed him the empty shortbread packet from Kilbane's shoe. Kilbane kept his face neutral but inside he was dashed. That was the only proof he could offer Hatch. Now he could only hope his words were enough.

 

The major never looked up from the foil wrapper he now held. He just examined it as if it puzzled him, his brow furrowing deeply as he did. He flicked his other hand at Kilbane and the guard in broad dismissal. Within a second, Kilbane was steered back outside the office, the door snapping shut behind.

 

“Get dressed,” the second guard ordered, his rifle now unslung and pointed at the floor.

 

Kilbane eagerly complied, his hands shaking uncontrollably. The cold had settled to his bones. Even reclothed, he shivered nakedly despite his best attempts to suppress it. He knew he needed to get his core temperature up quickly or he might never fight it back. His feet were already half numb as he slipped them into his shoes.

 

The instant he donned his jacket, the guards grasped either arm and escorted him down another row of offices, away from the platform he’d entered by, leaving his shackles behind. They stopped at a central door that opened onto a second, recently constructed sky bridge across the four-lane street above the last of the standing water to the children’s medical center he’d spotted from the ferry.

 

They quick-marched him through another maze of corridors, downstairs, outside, then through the equally confusing pathways and narrow side streets of the militarized hospital complex, made more so in the dim, gray, overcast light. The heavy clouds had taken on a look his Nana called pregnant. The wind sliced through the narrow passageways and his clothing like her finely honed sewing shears.

 

As the cold numbed his mind further, Kilbane became increasingly convinced the guards were searching for an alleyway where they could line him up against a wall like at Kilmainham Gaol and be done with it. Instead, they eventually pushed him through a chain-link gate that opened onto a weed and concrete-strewn lot between a burned-out apartment building and a strip mall of office suites.

 

Kilbane stared at the broken, empty sockets where windows once stood, swaying slightly as he desperately tried to get his mind to synch up with what he saw.

 

When the gate rattled shut behind him, it took him a moment to realize that he was the only one outside it. He turned slowly to find the two guards trudging back the way they’d come. Now the shock of his sudden freedom, and all that it implied, registered enough for him to shout the first confused thought that came to mind.

 

“Where do I go?” he yelled at their retreating backs, disoriented. “I don’t know where I’m supposed to be.”

 

One of the guards sidled back to the gate. Though Kilbane couldn’t see the man’s mouth beneath the balaclava, his voice said he was smiling as he asked. “Tell me, convict, what’s the difference between ignorance and apathy?”

 

Kilbane stared at him, mind-addled and openly shivering again now that he was no longer moving, not comprehending the non sequitur as the internal cold began to shut down his logical mind.

 

After a moment of eying him with sparkling blue eyes, the guard answered sweetly, “I don’t know, and I don’t care.”

 

The man punctuated his answer with a booming laugh, then turned to follow his companion. He repeated the answer to himself just loud enough to hear and then chuckled again at his middle school humor as both guards walked away.

 

While Kilbane huddled into himself and turned to find the closest semblance of shelter against the icy wind, the looming, heavy clouds blurred, and it began to snow.

 

 

Part 2 (Chapters 4-7)

 

© 2022 Edward P. Morgan III