Next Year in Olympia - pt 2 (4-7)

 

Part 1 (Chapters 1-3)

4

 

In his dream, voices argued over him. They prodded him and kicked him. The blows spread white-hot ripples through his chest and abdomen that he curled tightly around, trying to preserve. They warmed him before diffusing, leaving him wanting more.

 

Instead, someone carried him like a pallbearer for someone they despised. They dumped him in a coffin and then shrouded him like a corpse. He had no strength, no thought to resist. He was neatly constrained, frozen, and powerless.

 

As if he were already dead.

 

---

 

Kilbane awoke when he could not breathe. More precisely, could not catch his breath. He opened his eyes to darkness. A dream within a dream?

 

No. The darkness contoured to his mouth with each sharp inhalation. The dimmest light seeped in from below. A few quick pulls on muscles told him his hands and feet were bound. His ribs were bruised but unbroken. More importantly, he was warm.

 

That wasn’t quite right either. He was no longer shivering. He’d just returned from deadly cold. He could feel a tingling advancing down his wrists and ankles as he flexed his limbs against the bonds, leaving a hot ache trailing in their wake. Each drawn breath no longer cut his lungs.

 

He lay on an unforgiving surface that occasionally bounced and jostled beneath him. He was still curled within himself but constrained from stretching out by the sides of whatever container he lay in.

 

“I think he’s awake.” The muffled voice came from above his head. Male or female, he couldn’t tell.

 

“Too bad,” came the baritone answer. “If he gives you any trouble, I say we put him down. We can dump him and tell Hatch he was dead when we got there. I don’t know why he wants to bother with this traitor anyway. And in weather like this.”

 

“You heard the man,” the first voice called to him. Definitely female and as uncompromising as the box. “Settle down or we end it here.”

 

Kilbane stopped moving but kept flexing his muscles in isometric exercises to keep the blood flowing. By now, his fingers and toes were on fire. Which meant he’d likely keep them. Thanks to whoever threatened to kill him. Restrained at least for the moment by Hatch. Who likely thought he was the mole.

 

Convincing him otherwise would complicate the task. Never mind within the timeline of the operation.

 

Kilbane didn’t get much time to clear his head and organize his thoughts. Within minutes whatever vehicle he was in, he assumed some sort of electric by its lack of noise, jarred to a halt. After a moment of crunching footfalls, the covering over him was pulled off. Cold slowly began to reassert itself but he found his eyes still darkened. His head was still covered, rendition style by a hood. Not the reception he’d hoped for.

 

Once again, he was picked up and slung over someone's shoulder like a sack of supplies.

 

“I swear if you give me trouble,” the man said as he shifted Kilbane’s weight onto his shoulder, “I’ll drop on your head. Monique, get the door and let them know we’re here. Then get that cart out of sight.”

 

Kilbane was carried like cargo. He could hear by the hollow echo of his captor’s footfalls that they’d entered an enclosed space. The cold retreated slightly to become a chill. Then warmth began to seep in. He heard the soft pops of a wood fire. His bearer dropped him in a hardbacked chair and quickly secured him to it. Kilbane didn’t resist.

 

After a moment where all he heard was the fire and the shuffling of a couple of pairs of feet, someone yanked off his hood. After so long in the dark, the dim light of the fireplace ten feet away made Kilbane squint. Between him and it were two figures, one male, one female, shadowed and backlit by the fire, hindered by skin tones.

 

“Is it him?” the woman asked. “You saw him more than I did.”

 

“Yeah,” the man replied. “Thinner than he was, and grayer. But definitely him.”

 

Kilbane immediately recognized that voice. Duane Hatch. The build was right. That made the woman Taniqua Jones, his militia second-in-command.

 

“So glad you could finally join us,” Hatch said as he noticed Kilbane studying him.

 

“It’s been a while, Duane.” Kilbane opted to keep his reply casual. “I’ve got to say I expected it might take me longer to track you down.”

 

The pause that greeted him for an instant said that remark caught the pair off-guard. The feeling of accomplishment sank quickly with Hatch’s booming laugh that followed.

 

“Same old Dave Kilbane,” Hatch said, still chuckling. “Even now you think your words can save you from what you’ve done.”

 

Jones took a step toward him. “When I heard they’d finally snatched you for black marketeering, I thought, if you wait long enough, every dog gets its day. Any sane man would have cowered within the fence with the rest of the collaborators. It wouldn’t have saved you, but would have made you harder to get.”

 

She took another step toward him. Her voice became more intimate, more personal. “But not you. What’d you think when you took up Major West’s offer as an informant? That you’d waltz back in and finish what you’d started?”

 

She paused. Kilbane wasn’t sure if she expected an answer, so he chose to stay silent. He figured Jones still had more to say. Her speech had the feel of something she’d practiced in her head.

 

When he didn’t respond, Jones kept going. “When I heard you’d been dumped outside the fence, at first, I thought, let nature take its course. Let him die like he deserves, naked, cold, and alone.”

 

Kilbane’s eyes had adjusted to where he could see her and Hatch were both in some semblance of uniforms, ones that looked more like they belonged to POWs, clean but worn and mended.

 

“But I wanted you to know exactly who did this and why,” Jones continued. “I didn’t want you to die wondering. I didn’t want you to die in ignorance. When you betrayed us, you stole my kids from me. It’s been over a year since I’ve seen my babies. I don’t even know who’s caring for them, friends, family, or strangers. So, before we call up a tribunal, is there anything you want to say?”

 

“Matt Sullivan,” Kilbane replied simply and clearly but didn’t say anything else, letting the room reabsorb his renewed silence. Any further explanation would only undermine his position as an excuse.

 

“What,” Jones demanded, more like a warning than a question.

 

Kilbane cast his voice slightly louder to ensure anyone unseen in the shadows would hear. “I said, ‘Matt Sullivan’. He’s the reason all of you are here. He’s the man who took you away from your kids. And I’m the man who can get you back to them.”

 

He knew naming Sullivan with that promise would have unintended and undesirable consequences for the man’s wife and children, but so would everything he was about to do with the militia. With no other play, he could only forge ahead and banish Rose’s small, dirty, innocent face from his mind.

 

“I thought he was dead,” Hatch said. “Or MIA after the sweeps.”

 

“He’s very much alive and well fed.” Kilbane smiled as he studied his backlit, shadowed profile for a moment, knowing he and Jones could read his face where he couldn’t see theirs.

 

“He on his way here next?” Jones asked quietly and malevolently. “Did you betray him, too?”

 

“I’m not talking about getting him here.” Kilbane shook his head. “I’m talking about getting you there.” Now he looked past her to Hatch. “But not just to Sullivan. He’s only the symptom. I’m talking about getting you a shot at O’Grady and the governor. I’m talking about taking these islands back.”

 

Jones quickly closed the remaining distance between them. Low, so only Kilbane could hear, she said. “What are you playing at, Kilbane? If this is one of your bullshit tricks, I swear I’ll do you slow.”

 

“I’m trying to give you an opportunity, Specialist Jones,” he replied quietly but authoritatively. “And to keep you from making an irreversible mistake.”

 

Hatch finally spoke again, levelly. “Maybe we should hear what he has to say.”

 

“Maybe with fewer ears around,” Kilbane offered.

 

When Jones spoke again, she was incredulous, “You’re not going to listen to this scammer, are you, Hatch?”

 

Hatch shook his head then flicked his hand for her to step back. She turned away but not before Kilbane caught a disgusted look cross her face as it was briefly profiled by the light.

 

After Jones backed toward the fire, Hatch spoke again. “Talk,” he instructed in his best sergeant’s command voice, like Kilbane was one of his recruits.

 

“Is all this necessary, Duane?” Kilbane shrugged to indicate his bonds. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

 

Hatch glanced back at Jones then said, “If she likes what she hears, maybe we cut you loose. We’re keeping score here, Dave. Start tallying points.”

 

Kilbane sighed then started spinning out the story of the past year, of laying low and continuing to be the community’s go-to scavenger, of sifting and bargaining for information to figure out who the mole was, who had betrayed the militia and by proxy the operation. He left his team’s names out of it for now.

 

He quickly sensed Jones's impatience and glossed ahead to Rose Sullivan and her birthday present. Her improvised purse and the cookies.

 

“Are we supposed to believe this nonsense that Sullivan gave something like that to one of his babies as a plaything?” Jones interjected from beside the fire.

 

“It’d been a year,” Kilbane said, “and Matt’s never been the sharpest knife in the drawer. Besides, I don’t think he knew. I think his son was just trying to do something nice for his little sister for her birthday with something he found hidden in the house.”

 

“If he was the mole, then why weren’t you rounded up with the rest of us?” Jones pressed. “You recommended him.”

 

“Because I firewalled our teams by design,” Kilbane said. “Standard cell structure. We never approached Matt or anyone. I only passed on my team’s recommendations to Hatch. You guys vetted their skills and made your own decisions.”

 

“So, this is our fault?” Jones snapped. “You’re saying we fucked up?”

 

“I’m saying we all fucked up,” Kilbane replied, trying to make peace before the finger pointing got out of hand. “There’s plenty of blame to go around.”

 

Jones snorted her derision. Hatch held up a hand. “Nice story. Got any proof?”

 

“I did,” Kilbane conceded with a shrug. “Until that major at the dock had me strip-searched. The shortbread foil was buried in my shoe. Your West has it now. You have spies inside? Ask them.”

 

“This is bullshit,” Jones muttered. “Scammer gotta scam.”

 

Kilbane plowed ahead undaunted, piecing information together as he went, desperation birthing insight.

 

“Think about it, Duane,” he said, only looking at Hatch, knowing his fate rested there. “O’Grady’s been receiving humanitarian aid from the mainland. So being the corrupt local sheriff that he is, he keeps it for himself. He uses it to feed his most loyal deputies and tactical units while the rest of us on the island slowly starve. But being cunning and knowing he and the governor aren’t always on the same page, he stockpiles most of it against the day he’s no longer useful. The day he’s no longer supplied. Most people might have thought after rolling up the militia, they’d be safe.”

 

Kilbane swallowed and continued, the dry, smoky air beginning to make his voice go hoarse.

 

“And maybe he did. Only O’Grady got word of the Florida Third moving to take over his operation here. He knows as long as he controls the prisoners on this island, he controls the population on the other island with the threat of reprisals. The same as he controls people here. He sees the governor making a move and he sees that move as a threat. So, he takes some of his largesse and spreads it around to people outside his ranks who helped him in the past. People like Sullivan. Because he knows these Three Percenters are likely to liquidate the detention center, or at a minimum the elements no one controls. If they do, O’Grady loses his leverage. Or, he thinks the governor feels secure enough after three years behind his private state militia and his election police that he no longer needs a local population here. Maybe he can finally set up the military outpost on the last islands that control the southern Gulf. Either way, I can tell you for free that your Major West isn’t screwing around. When he moves, there will be a whole lot less of our militia than there is now.”

 

After a slight pause, he added, “But I think you both know that already.”

 

“You aren’t buying this, are you, Hatch?” Jones snapped now that Kilbane was done talking. “We agreed that if we got this asshole, we’d use him to send a message.”

 

When Hatch didn’t respond immediately, Kilbane seized his opportunity.

 

“What if I can get you that, Taniqua?” He risked being more familiar with her than he felt. “What if you could send a message that they’d hear all the way in Olympia?”

 

“I’d say you were talking like Chain Gang Chuck,” she shot back, “after he supposedly came to Jesus and suddenly needed our southside votes.”

 

Hatch held up a hand again. “What exactly are we talking about, Dave?”

 

“Weapons,” Kilbane answered without hesitation. “Small arms, enough to outfit a light company. In the hands of veterans who know how to use them, enough to take the islands back.”

 

“Are you for real?” Jones said. “Where are these weapons coming from? FedEx from the moon?”

 

Kilbane just smiled and shrugged his bonds again.

 

When Hatch finally said, “Cut him loose, Taniqua. We need to hear his plan” Kilbane knew he’d survive at least long enough to lay it out.

 

And he did after she untied him, at least the abridged version he’d shared with this team. With enough names, dates, and details to convince them. But he withheld the critical details, the details no one else had the need to know. Not yet.

 

When Kilbane finished, Hatch shook his head and said, “You never learned to KISS, did you, Dave?”

 

“Kiss?” Kilbane repeated back the non sequitur, unsure he’d heard it right.

 

“Keep It Simple, Stupid,” Jones informed him bitingly.

 

Kilbane said nothing. It was simpler than he was telling them.

 

Hatch rubbed a hand across this face. “It’s a complex plan with a lot of interlocking pieces. There are a hundred things that could go wrong.”

 

“Fortune favors the bold,” Kilbane responded, rubbing his wrists where the ropes had been. “If you see a better way, I’m listening. You’re the professional. I’m just a gifted amateur, as you once said.”

 

Hatch let the silence settle between them again, interrupted only by the occasional popping of the fire.

 

“The problem is, I don’t,” he finally said flatly.

 

“Once it kicks off,” Kilbane said hopefully, “we can adjust and adapt. But with the Third setting up shop, we don’t have a lot of time.”

 

“This is all well above my paygrade,” Hatch admitted, shaking his head. “I mean, even if it works, what are we doing here? Sending up a distress signal and hoping someone sees it?”

 

“Pretty much,” Kilbane admitted. “That was always the plan.” A lie with a strong element of truth, like the best lies always were.

 

“All I see is a whole lot of risk for some nebulous objective,” Jones stated. But she didn’t sound quite as dead set against it as she had a few minutes earlier. At least by a sliver. Kilbane could see the need for revenge burned deep within her, but tempered by experience and caution.

 

“She’s got a point, Dave,” Hatch said. He swept a hand across the room. “You’re asking me to sell this to the men and women out there after convincing them it’s not a setup to get them all killed.”

 

“An elaborate setup, Duane,” Kilbane responded. “If I wanted the militia dead, all I had to do was wait. West does the work for me. No need to show up here.”

 

“Seriously, man,” Jones asked him pointedly, “who’d you think would sign up for this? Why should any of us help you, never mind Olympia that none of us has ever seen?”

 

Kilbane considered his answer for a moment. He knew convincing her depended on the next words he said. After a quick review of his rational arguments, he found nothing convincing. Oaths and patriotism meant something at this level, but a lot less than the guy or girl squatting beside you in the dirt.

 

So instead, he looked around and said casually, “You got something more important on your to-do list?”

 

When Jones exhaled audibly then shook her head and mumbled “Shit,” Kilbane thought he’d blown it. Until both she and Hatch started laughing, and couldn’t stop.

 

“Those are the first true words to fall out of your mouth yet, Scammer,” Jones said, wiping away a tear. “I know I’ll regret this in the morning, but I might just start to like you.”

 

Kilbane didn’t need to spend the night to hate himself. Because he knew in his heart that he was using them without asking their consent.

 

---

 

“Before we kick this off, I need to talk to Katz,” Kilbane said. They’d reconvened after a quick break from planning so Hatch could coordinate with his people while Kilbane, still guarded by Jones, cleaned himself up. They settled back in his original interrogation room by the fire to eat.

 

Food was harder to come by but Jones had scrounged up some zucchini polenta with a side of beans, supplemented by staple greens that could be grown locally. Mostly cold because the solar ovens weren’t working, the only means of cooking they had other than the fire. And Jones had neither time nor patience for that, leastwise for Kilbane.

 

“She won’t help,” Hatch said around a spoonful of polenta and beans. “She’s been out of commission since we got here. We’ve tried. We’ve all tried.”

 

Kilbane shook his head without breaking eye contact. “I need to tell her about Emily. They were friends.”

 

Hatch pursed his lips, then kept chewing thoughtfully, and finally nodded. “Jones will set you up with a guide.”

 

“Monique and Shaq can get him there,” Jones offered after considering a moment, poking her spoon to separate the beans from the polenta on her metal plate. “They’ve got no part in the logistics and have already been introduced.”

 

“I don’t need an escort,” Kilbane said, wondering now that his own plate was empty whether there was more to be had but not daring to ask. “Just tell me where she is. I can get there on my own.”

 

“If you think for one hot minute that I’m letting you out of my people’s sight, Scammer,” Jones eyed him harshly, “you’ve lost your damned mind.”

 

“Besides,” Hatch added. “She’s a long way north. And this island’s not entirely safe for someone lighter than toast.”

 

“Toast?” Jones laughed. “Scammer here’s the original bleached white Wonder Bread. About as useful, too, from what I can tell.”

 

Kilbane conceded with a spread of his hands. He saw he couldn’t win this one without creating more suspicion. He would just have to find a way to keep his escorts out of the room for a few minutes. “When do we leave?”

 

“It’s best to wait till morning,” Hatch said. “If you head out a couple of hours before dawn, you can get there around sunup. I wouldn’t risk traveling in the light or approaching her in the dark. You’ll have to wait for dusk to return.”

 

“No sense wasting time to come back here,” Kilbane said, arranging his utensils on his plate and then setting it aside. “How about we meet at the signal site instead?”

 

“You in a hurry?” Hatch asked looking up, suddenly less interested in his food.

 

Kilbane shrugged. “If you can get your people organized, I’d say we’re pressed for time. I don’t know how long it will take my team to set things in motion. Could be a few days.”

 

“This already sounds like a cluster,” Jones said. She’d worked her way methodically through the polenta, then the beans, and now was starting on the greens.

 

“Nature of the beast,” Kilbane replied, watching her, wondering why she had saved them for last. But she clearly relished them. For him, the whole meal could have done with a dose of butter or salt. A dinner roll or square of cornbread would have added a nice touch. As would a half-rack of smoked ribs. Man, he was still hungry.

 

When Hatch and Jones finished eating, they cleared the coffee table and settled down to the business of logistics, the bane of all military planners, especially ones with a fluid timetable and severely limited communications. But everything hung on controlling what they could.

 

“How many people can you gather when the time comes,” Kilbane asked.

 

Hatch pursed his lips and shot a look at Jones.

 

“Reliable?” she said. “Fifty.”

 

Kilbane controlled his expression as best he could. That was half the number he was expecting. Hatch had started with a couple hundred.

 

“And unreliable,” he asked.

 

“Seventy-five to a hundred,” Hatch conceded.

 

“So potentially fewer men than guns,” Kilbane observed. He just let that statement hang.

 

“Maybe,” Jones said. “But all of them with time in the dirt, not at a desk. They earned their stripes the hard way.”

 

Kilbane nodded. “Then we’ll just have to divide in two. Your reliable cadre will have to grab up the ferry when O’Grady parks it here, while the unreliables sit it out until we’re across the channel. I leave the details of the assault to you two. You know the terrain best. But once we have the ferry, we’ll need a body for every rifle including replacing casualties, reliable or not. I only caught a glance at the Emergency Ops Center but what I saw said it might be a tough nut to crack, even with their best and brightest tied up at the ferry terminal.”

 

“How much help can we expect once we land,” Hatch asked.

 

“Some,” Kilbane said. “Our trainer will arrive with the weapons. He can brief you.”

 

“Why don’t we just take that boat when it lands?” Jones asked.

 

Kilbane smiled. “Not big enough. It’ll barely handle the guns, my XO, and your liaison. Ferrying people back would be too slow. If this plan is going to work, it’s got to be like billiards. We have to break both hard and fast.”

 

“Why do I suspect that you play pool like you have sex,” Jones responded. “When you don’t know what to do, you just close your eyes and bang. Bet that happened to you a lot.”

 

“More than you’ll ever know, sister,” Kilbane replied, chuckling. Until he remembered Emily.

 

“Don’t call me that,” Jones snapped. “We ain’t family.”

 

Kilbane raised his hands in dazed, confused surrender. “No offense.”

 

“What about the sheriff’s helos?” Hatch asked, getting them back on track.

 

“Helo,” Kilbane corrected. “One of them is in pieces. If they only have one to put in the air, it will be over the demonstration at the ferry terminal. By the time they figure out what’s happened here, we should be long gone.”

 

“And the H-60s at the Naval Air Station?” Jones asked. “If they float those birds, this will be a short fucking war.”

 

“I have it on reliable authority that all those assets are being reassigned,” Kilbane lied with a confidence he didn’t feel.

 

Hatch and Jones seemed to accept that.

 

“Do you have a plan for distributing weapons,” Kilbane asked.

 

Hatch looked to Jones.

 

“We’ve got two options,” she said. “Either we have our people hump it to the boat landing individually and link up.”

 

“Seems like that many people on the move might get someone’s attention,” Kilbane observed.

 

She nodded. “Or we send electric golf carts like the one that snatched you and set up distribution points.”

 

Electric carts. Interesting. That set Kilbane thinking. “How many do you have?”

 

“Cargo style?” Jones said. “Four from the city went missing early. Maybe another dozen little ones from the meter maids.”

 

Kilbane thought furiously for a moment. “If there’s any way to load some of those on the ferry, it’d solve our transport issue on the other side.”

 

Hatch and Jones exchanged a look.

 

“You don’t have transport nailed down?”

 

“My people were trying to round something up. No way for me to know.” Kilbane smiled. “Last resort, it’s two feet don’t fail me now.”

 

“Where do we disembark?” Hatch asked.

 

“The 666 overpass,” Kilbane replied. “Figured that boondoggle should be good for something.”

 

“That’s like five miles to the EOC,” Hatch noted, consulting an ancient county map he’d dug up and unfolded on the coffee table beside an oil lantern. From the advertising, it looked like something the Chamber of Commerce might have once given away to new residents.

 

Kilbane nodded, pointing over Hatch’s shoulder. “Straight up the ridge. We’ll tell them there’s a meal waiting. That’ll get them moving.”

 

“Hell of a hike,” Jones said, considering. “Loaded. In the dark.”

 

“My people will be waiting with guides,” Kilbane reassured her. “But now you know why I want to add your carts to my wish list.”

 

“Even moving four from hiding to the boat is a huge risk,” Hatch said. “Unless we get weather like this again.”

 

“Can’t count on snow to save us twice,” Kilbane said. “Wouldn’t make for good boating anyway.”

 

“If you don’t like the weather, just wait a while,” Jones joked.

 

“Truer now than before the meteors fell,” Kilbane said.

 

“I hear that,” Jones replied, rubbing her arms. “This shit’s crazy.”

 

“Why I moved out of Chicago,” Hatch added. “The family thought I was nuts for moving up there in the first place. Probably saying now that it followed me back here.”

 

The three of them continued hammering out the details they could. They decided on a staggered schedule with three cargo carts meeting the boat after it landed, leaving the fourth as a backup. With the round trip to the landing site, they’d likely have to be abandoned afterward. No way to recharge them at night. With having to conceal solar panels, even getting the one they’d used this morning topped off would be a trick. The smaller ones they’d reposition near the ferry to load up if they could.

 

They hacked out the rest of a plan late into the night. If the devil was in the details, the name of their pet demon was Legion. Hatch was particularly keen to hear Kilbane’s updated assessment of the EOC. He quizzed him ruthlessly on upgrades and emplacements. Kilbane told him what he’d seen but eventually had to leave a more detailed evaluation to Tran or Hall.

 

By the time they sorted the knowns from the unknowns, Kilbane only had a few hours to catch some sleep before he set out to see Katz.

 

When they broke up, he was satisfied the plan still had a chance. As if this part really mattered much other than getting it in motion. Tomorrow’s meeting would tell the tale. But for that to work, Hatch’s people had to seem like a credible threat.

 

 

5

 

Kilbane managed to grab a couple of hours of sleep. He awoke cold, tired and sore. But when Shaq and Monique came for him, he was mostly alert and ready.

 

The hike itself was uneventful. Snow still blanketed the landscape, about four inches total. Because the ground wasn’t frozen, it had begun to melt underneath and then refreeze overnight, making the footing treacherous. After slipping several times, Kilbane began to emulate Monique who had a gait that lifted one foot straight up, moved it forward, and then set it straight down. Awkward and unnatural but effective enough if tiring. Shaq never quite mastered it and spent much of the journey cursing under his breath. But he overcame it by brute force as if it were an enemy.

 

Kilbane spent most of the hike with his hands in his jacket pockets, which only helped so much. Before they set out, Shaq gifted him a knit stocking cap, which at least kept his ears mostly warm. Thankfully, the Third’s guards at the ferry landing hadn’t stolen his jacket or his wool socks. Although he wished he had a good pair of boots rather than walking shoes.

 

The three of them left tracks behind them which was less than ideal, even in the dark. The snow cover reflected just enough ambient light to guide them, although by the time they set out the moon had set. Kilbane could only hope the Florida sun would take care of that within a day or two. The meteors and the sudden collapse of the Antarctic ice shelf had disrupted weather, even climate, as well as raised sea level overnight, at least by any pre-fall geologic standard.

 

But latitude was still on their side. As well, once the atmosphere stabilized from the sudden trauma, all that water vapor from the increased ocean surface would act as a greenhouse gas. Where that settled depended on the battle of the albedo from clouds reflecting more sunlight, Emily had told him before she left. This weather pattern could last years, even decades. Or it could snap back with a vengeance, like an overtaxed, overheated feedback loop. No way to say without data they were unlikely to collect, at least under the current regional regime. Thus, the pilgrimage to Olympia.

 

Which for Kilbane was now reduced to a five-mile trudge through an island detention center that looked to have outlived its usefulness. Much like the three of them. Almost.

 

Once they’d circled well clear of the Third’s downtown enclave, they picked up a defunct railway bed, just after it crossed beneath the highway. Their progress increased as they drifted toward the island’s northwest shore. As they approached the gridwork road pattern neighborhood where Hatch had told him that Katz had taken up residence, dawn should have been near. But not even the palest hint of rose lightened the eastern horizon. Instead, high clouds the color of tarnished silver blanketed the lightening sky.

 

Monique called a halt. They sheltered in an abandoned house backing up the tracks to wait.

 

By then, Kilbane was certain he knew where they were headed. At first, he thought Katz might be holing up at the old community center that was central to her faith. He remembered that her mother had ended up in their retirement home. But that high-rise was on the western edge of the island’s intertidal zone. Then he recalled visiting Katz once at her mother’s house, a 1950s bungalow on a cul-de-sac with an expansive backyard filled with tropical fruit trees back when that had been a good bet. Mangoes, papayas and Key limes. If Katz was hiding in plain sight, she would do it somewhere familiar. That’s what most people did, return to whatever security was offered even if only implied through the vagaries of imperfect memory.

 

Outside, Kilbane heard a small scrambling. Something trying to regain purchase on the gravel railbed after slipping. Monique produced a long-barreled revolver from under her coat. Shaq now held a wicked-looking hunting knife. They both listened intently for a moment before relaxing as if by some signal unheard by Kilbane.

 

“Dog,” Shaq said, now by an empty window.

 

Monique nodded and restowed her pistol.

 

“I didn’t think there were any weapons on the island,” Kilbane said, settling back against a wall as he began to relax, taking his cue from his guides.

 

“This is America,” Monique replied, still peering intermittently out the door. “There’re guns everywhere.”

 

“They found the obvious ones,” Shaq offered, “rounded up from the databases they said they didn’t keep. But even the sheriff couldn’t confiscate them all, even if they had been background checked. He was more worried about high caliber rifles than pop guns.”

 

“Idiot,” Monique snapped. “There’s enough twenty-two stashed around the country that my grandkids won’t have to worry even if they never stamp another round.”

 

“With nine-mil a close second,” Shaq said. He glanced back out the window, surveying the darkness, which was all Kilbane could see.

 

“Too bulky,” Monique replied. “These rounds do the trick and are lighter to carry, easier to hide. I can fit a thousand in a shoebox.”

 

“Yeah, but not that toy hand-cannon,” Shaq said, shooting her a look before turning back to the window. “And twenty-two magnum ain’t exactly common.”

 

“Revolvers don’t break down. And they fire what you feed them,” Monique replied, patting her jacket where it was stowed. “Besides, that’s why I keep a cylinder of mini-mags as a backup.”

 

“No stopping power,” Shaq shot back without even looking at her. Obviously, a debate they’d had before.

 

“Yeah, well neither does that gangster gun you found after the recoil spring snapped.” Monique snorted. “How’s that Tallahassee toothpick working out for you?”

 

Shaq didn’t respond, just got a bitter expression like he’d been snacking on persimmons. But his eyes never stopped sweeping the darkness outside.

 

“I thought Hatch said this was friendly territory,” Kilbane said. Normally, he’d join the watch but Shaq and Monique seemed to have an unspoken connection that said they’d worked together often. Besides, the hike had left him more tired than it should have even on short sleep.

 

“Well, if he did, he misspoke,” Monique said, glancing back at him. “Or more likely you misheard. Not everyone left despite the sheriff declaring eminent domain. People down south know us so mostly leave us be. Up here, they don’t much like strangers. Never did.”

 

That gave Kilbane the angle he needed.

 

“Then when we get to Katz’s, you better let me approach alone,” he said. “I’m going to need time to warm her up to you.”

 

“What are you playing at, Scammer?” Monique said, eyeing him. “Yeah, Taniqua warned me about you.”

 

“She’s a Coast Guard commander,” Kilbane said, staring back. “You think she doesn’t have something with a little firepower behind the door?”

 

“The sheriff would have confiscated that shit long ago,” she scoffed.

 

“Like he did yours?” Kilbane shot back at her. “Besides, do you think they even know where she is? She sure as hell won’t be happy to see me, never mind Hatch’s people.”

 

Monique just shook her head, more incredulously than in agreement. Shaq just kept quiet and kept his vigil.

 

“Look,” Kilbane said when Monique didn’t reply, “I’ll signal you when she’s ready for company. You can watch front and back. It’s not like I have anywhere to go.”

 

“Right,” she said, dubious, no longer meeting his eye, just staring out the door.

 

“It’s an island for god’s sake,” Kilbane interjected.

 

“So’s Ireland,” Monique retorted. “But it’s my ass if you disappear like a snake.”

 

Kilbane sighed. He’d have to try a different gambit. “Truth is she doesn’t know about Emily.”

 

Both Shaq and Monique stared at him blankly. Unlike Hatch, they didn’t know.

 

“My wife,” he added. “They were good friends, before.”

 

“Yeah, I heard about that,” Shaq said. “Shitty not knowing…”

 

“I know,” Kilbane cut him off. “Let’s focus on the task at hand. The only reason I’m here is to break the news to her. This might be my only chance. You can at least show a little compassion and give her a moment to process the news without an audience of strangers.”

 

Monique rolled her eyes like a mother seeking divine patience. She drew a deep breath then exhaled slowly.

 

“Fine,” she finally conceded. “You get fifteen minutes. But we check the approaches first.”

 

“Thank you, Monique.” Fifteen was short, but he’d make it work.

 

“Don’t make me regret this,” she said, now staring him down to ensure he got the message, “or I swear to god I’ll make damned sure you will.”

 

---

 

It took an hour of scouting before Monique was satisfied that Kilbane couldn’t disappear into thin air once inside. By the way she moved, Kilbane could tell she knew her trade.

 

Day had not so much broken as the sky had lightened to a slatey gray. Kilbane could feel the temperature transition from below to above freezing. An almost indescribable sensation of the air warming and melting against his face.

 

The house looked the same as he remembered. The exception being that sometime in the interim it had been gone from sunny yellow to dove gray. With a full, tall tree ringed with overgrown shrubs in front, it was the kind of house that would disappear at night.

 

He could feel Shaq’s eyes on him. The big man had taken up a position in an abandoned house down the street with a clear view of Katz’s place. Monique had scouted the back and found a hide where she said she had a good view if he tried to sneak out that way into the twenty-odd square miles of abandoned ruins remaining above water. A careful man could disappear for days or weeks into that terrain if he knew how to scrounge up supplies.

 

Kilbane had no intention of that. He needed both Hatch’s people and Katz to make his plan work. But he was hesitating. He felt exposed out here in unknown territory with no one friendly at his back. Forward was an unknown reception, possibly hostile. Plus, anyone else lurking between here and there who was either trying to hide out or just get by unnoticed. Stumbling on a stranger unexpectedly could be catastrophic, even under Shaq and Monique’s watchful eye. But it was too late to turn back.

 

In the end, he opted to act like he belonged here. He didn’t skulk or hide; he just walked down the center of the street, unhurried but with purpose. Like he would have in his own neighborhood if he were going to check on friends several blocks away. As far as possible from the houses on either side so he didn’t appear threatening or covert. A trader’s strategy.

 

He knew as he approached the driveway that Katz could be watching if she was here. He hoped she was. Surprises quickly turned nasty now, sometimes accidentally. And if Hatch was wrong, or if someone else had rousted her, well, Kilbane didn’t want to think about that as he crunched through the snow. That he didn’t see any other tracks in the surrounding streets or yards was at least encouraging.

 

Kilbane was walking up the driveway wondering if the universe had called his bluff, feeling like his strategy had played itself out badly, not quite sure whether to see it through and knock when the front door opened. Just a tentative crack at first, just wide enough for a gun barrel to either poke out inexpertly or more likely to linger in the shadows behind. He hesitated.

 

Then the door swung open and Kilbane spotted Katz in silhouette. Neither short nor tall, maybe slightly below average, though shorter than him as nearly all women and most men were. The line of her utilitarian deck jacket to her jeans was straight, unsurprising with its bulk. What others saw as not quite stout but sturdy, he saw a woman still prepared to brace against the weather at sea. He wouldn’t be surprised if she kept a duffle packed beside the door.

 

“Somehow I knew you’d end up here one day, David,” she said as he stepped onto the walk to the door. “I hoped you wouldn’t but that was too much to ask. Come in before all the heat escapes.”

 

“Thanks, Deborah,” he said as he stomped the snow off his shoes beside the threshold. “Sorry to drop by unannounced.”

 

She cocked her head in a question of how he might have changed that as she stepped aside to let him enter.

 

He found himself in a small, almost tiny living room filled with a cargo-style couch and two club chairs, all in remarkably good shape. Resewn and repaired upholstery, a new coat of varnish on the wood. Everything clean and squared away. Kilbane expected Katz spent a great deal of her time now maintaining what she had, as she’d always done. A candle lantern glowed on the coffee table, the room’s sole light and heat. A paperback lay open, face down beside it. Some sort of survival manual gauging by its cover. Next to the French doors that opened onto the backyard, he spied her go-bag. Otherwise, what he could see was military spartan and uncluttered. Quite a change from the fussy, full décor her mother had when he’d been here last.

 

The door clicked shut behind him. When Kilbane turned to face Katz, he spotted the gray survival rifle leaning in the corner by the door. She followed his eyes.

 

“I picked that up for my dad from an Air Force lieutenant who died in Afghanistan. I ended up bunking with her at a joint service training exercise after 9/11. He always wanted one but didn’t trust the government databases and didn’t feel safe at a gun show. She wanted a pair of watch binoculars before she deployed. We worked out a trade through requisition channels. I was surprised my mom kept it. But I don’t think she ever went through his things in the attic. I always meant to but never found the time until they sent me back. Somehow the scavengers missed it.” Katz gestured to the living room. “Please, sit. Tea? Herbal, I’m afraid.”

 

“I’d love a cup,” Kilbane replied, wondering how she’d brew it. “But only if you’ve got enough for four.”

 

She cocked her head again with her quizzical look.

 

“Two of Hatch’s people are with me. They’ll be at the door in about fifteen minutes so I don’t have long.”

 

“If you’re here to recruit me,” she turned back to face him, pausing on her way to the adjacent kitchen, “I’ll save you the time.”

 

He spread his hands. “I’m not. At least not for Hatch, and not the way you think. But I’ll get to that. First, I need to tell you about Emily.”

 

Katz abandoned her errand in favor of the second club chair. “How far did she get?” she asked as she dropped into it. To the point as always.

 

“Springfield after checking Dover. Delaware didn’t look like it would hold much south of Wilmington.”

 

Katz nodded. “New England did?”

 

“Initially,” he explained. “Until the infiltration, then most of our people bolted to Canada. Morten says the survivors are reclaiming it, armed this time. Maine is still in dispute.” He paused a moment, staring at the book on the table. Something about five acres and independence. Katz was always improving herself. Always preparing for the future. “I never should have let her go alone. I thought we still had time.”

 

Katz waved that away. “We all did. Or none of us would have ended up here. Are you in touch with any of the others?”

 

Kilbane nodded. “Harris is still out. And Morten, of course. He made contact with Olympia. I organized a recon team for them and from there the militia. Until it got rolled up and detained like you. But we have an opportunity.”

 

“So that’s what this is about.” Now she settled back in her chair, evaluating him as she might any junior officer within her command. “Lay it out for me.”

 

So, he did, all of it this time, except the final detail about Emily, as quickly and concisely as he could. The cross between a five-point order and an initial field debriefing.

 

Katz listened, taking his words in like a ship’s report, asking questions and seeking clarification, but otherwise not betraying what she thought. When he finished, she sat a moment in silence, two fingers steepled over her nose. She stared at the candle flame before she met his eye.

 

“You are going to get a whole lot of people killed,” Katz finally said. “Including that pair outside.”

 

“I don’t see much choice,” Kilbane responded, struggling to hold her gaze. He knew the cost of what he was attempting but didn’t want to dwell on it.

 

“There’s always a choice, David,” she replied.

 

“Only if you are content to live like this, Deborah,” he said, sweeping an arm around the room. “How long do you think they’ll let this go on?”

 

“Where there’s life, there’s hope,” she replied simply with a shrug.

 

“That’s the thing,” he responded. “There might not be for long. The governor installed the Florida Third at the ferry landing. They're now the inmates guarding this asylum. This place is about to transform into Warsaw, circa 1943.”

 

“Our Masada moment?” She waved another hand. “You always were paranoid.”

 

Now Kilbane set his voice with steel. “Observe, orient, decide, act. At every turn of the loop, I said this was where we were headed. You, Morten, Harris, you never believed until it was almost too late. Emily only reluctantly. But here we are.”

 

“Yes, we are,” she said. Then she mirrored his arm sweeping gesture. “And this is what happened the last time I helped you.”

 

“I didn’t do this,” Kilbane said, eyeing her savagely. “Do you think if the governor so much as suspected what you’d done that either of us would be talking?” He shook his head, leaning forward to emphasize his words. “O’Grady was conducting summary executions up until two years ago, for Christ's sake. They have no clue, not yet. But I can see the major in charge here now is already thinking, already putting the pieces together. O’Grady isn’t helping him, so far, but he will to save his own skin if it comes to that. We have one shot, Deborah. And the expiration date is fast approaching.

 

“What makes you think they’ll listen and stay grounded?” she asked, skeptically.

 

“You were a popular commander,” Kilbane said, forcing himself to sit back and appear relaxed. “Still are in a way Lewis never will be. He doesn’t strike me as the type of guy who’s going to be happy to receive orders to open up on his own people. But he also doesn’t strike me as the type of guy to say no, either. Path of least resistance.”

 

“Because that’s the way you set it up to force the issue,” Katz retorted, her frustration beginning to show.

 

Kilbane took a breath but didn’t say anything, letting them both calm down before he pushed too hard. If she said no, she’d mean it as a command decision and never look back. She hadn’t yet.

 

Their silence extended. The cold seeped back into Kilbane despite the enclosed space.

 

When Katz finally spoke again, her voice was tight but once again professional.

 

“When I was in high school,” she said, “I was recruited by the Air Force. They wanted me to sit with keys in a missile silo. They said I had the right psych profile. I considered it but didn’t think I wanted that level of responsibility or could follow those orders without considering the consequences. I joined the Coast Guard instead. A better fit. Right after I received my commission, I was recruited by the CIA. Same pitch. I knew then I could never stomach their schemes.”

 

Now she just looked at him.

 

“Either way, you swore an oath,” Kilbane offered as gently as he could. “Just like I did. Just like Emily.”

 

She nodded ruefully. “But to what? You know, before the meteors fell, I was ready to retire. Had my papers drawn up. With my dad gone, my mom needed my help. By then, the world had changed. After the insurrection, a lot of us no longer knew why we were doing it. Or for who.”

 

She let the words drift off.

 

“That one, too,” Kilbane said. “But that’s not the oath I meant. ‘Next year in Olympia’ that’s what we all said that night. You, me, Emily, Harris, Morten.” He ticked off each name on a finger.

 

“People talk, David,” Katz said. “They don’t always mean what they say. You never learned that.”

 

“Harris maybe,” he countered. “Morten, sure. You and me though, our word is our bond. Emily took it seriously enough to scout ahead for all of us.”

 

“That’s really what this is about, isn’t it?” Katz said, eyeing him again with that quizzical look again. “You think she’s out there somewhere, that she’s waiting for a sign.”

 

“Absolutely,” Kilbane replied with a conviction he didn’t feel. “One way or another, she’ll see what I do. Just like my Nana.”

 

“But she won’t come back, David.” A hint of sympathy entered Katz’s voice. “She can’t. If she could, she would have by now, trust me. That guilt will eat you up if you let it.”

 

“Oh, I know about guilt,” he replied bitterly, knowing the truth in her words that he hadn’t yet revealed. “I expect you do, too. Both of our traditions make an art form out of it. But sometimes it’s there to make sure we act. God helps those who help themselves.”

 

That earned him a glare but no more.

 

“Look,” Kilbane continued, sparing a glance toward the front door. His time was almost up. “I’ve laid out the situation. Those are the facts on the ground. I can’t change them, even if I wanted to. Decisions were made, right or wrong. All you can do now is decide how to react. Like you said that’s by design. If you decide to help, meet me at the landing. I told you about the signal and how to interpret the response. It goes up within the next couple of days. You won’t miss it.”

 

Now he added the steel back to his voice. The steel he’d needed to survive Ukraine. The steel he’d need to see this through. “But with or without you, this is happening, Deborah. The boulder’s rolling. The path is downhill. There’s no way to stop it now. So, it’s lead, follow, or get out of the way.”

 

A knock on the door interrupted any intended reply. Katz sighed and nodded toward the door, then levered herself to her feet.

 

“Let them in,” she called over her shoulder on her way to the kitchen again. “I’ll get that tea.”

 

 

6

 

After awkward introductions and a long moment where Shaq shuffled his feet uncertainly, the four of them settled in the living room at Katz’s insistence. She and David in the chairs, Shaq and Monique on the couch. Monique casually kept a watch over her shoulder out the front window.

 

Kilbane was amazed as Katz transformed to turn on her mother’s easy charm and combined it with her professional military reception demeanor. Within minutes, Shaq and Monique had gone from sitting on the edge of the couch uncertain how to hold themselves to settling back relaxed and comfortable. Soon, Katz had them exchanging small talk like old friends catching up. All without explicitly touching on their current situation but without seeming to avoid it. The past was a safe topic. The future went largely unaddressed.

 

Beneath it all, Kilbane noted the way Katz was subtly collecting information and intelligence under the guise of hospitality by steering the conversation. At the same time, while Katz never seemed starved for companionship, she didn’t seem to mind the company.

 

And yet, after sharing a pot luck exchange of rations with more tea, she was the one who nudged them toward the door. Subtly enough that he doubted either Shaq or Monique would see it as anything but their own idea. When he’d witnessed her mother do the same at his last visit, he hadn’t realized it had happened until he and Emily were halfway to their car. Even knowing what Katz was doing, he found himself drawn along nearly seamlessly. Which was why he saw her as ideal for his mission: she could convince as well as command and people would follow.

 

Back outside, the low gray looming clouds had given way to a high, thick, smooth ceiling that diluted the sun to a pale disk barely set out from the color of the clouds. A sun-bleached sun perched in a platinum gold sky. The lingering snow on the ground had begun to sweat but not yet trickle.

 

The three of them trudged back through their tracks to the rail line where they sought shelter in a different abandoned house. Kilbane catnapped until Monique thought it was safe enough to travel.

 

When she did, they picked up a constrained suburban creek that first drifted southwest then west. The banks were lined with trees which gave some visual concealment. Without the snow, they would have walked down the bank near the water for a lower profile. The lingering ice along the slope and cold water below made that too treacherous. So, they kept to the flat top instead, hoping anyone watching was focused the other way, hoping no one picked up their tracks. As Monique told it, there were small gangs of prisoners and locals who had banded together to prey on and exploit the weak. Three was about the right number not to be worth the risk as long as they avoided major strongholds but not so large as to be seen as a threat. Her pistol would drive off opportunists and scavengers but would also attract the attention of more determined clans. In current conditions, even the ever-present suburban coyotes had grown bold.

 

Somewhere near the island’s shore, they hooked south on a minor road that paralleled the major boulevards through more gridwork suburbia. Here their path got more tortuous as they diverted, circled, and drifted through block after block of tract housing. It now resembled the abandoned fringes of Detroit on the downside of the auto boom or the Ninth Ward post-Katrina.

 

After trekking a couple of hours, they came within sight of their destination as the light began to soften, a sixteen-story retirement center. The one Katz’s mother had lived in before the meteors fell. As one of the tallest buildings this far outside downtown, a signal fire on the roof would be easily visible across the channel to the other island. As long as his team was watching.

 

The trio once again took up residence in an abandoned house, all of which began to look the same. Kilbane rested. It had been a long day, a long several days on short sleep and little food with the promise of a long, cold night to come. Catching up a bit seemed like a good idea.

 

Shaq and Monique split watches, one on him, one watching outside for threats or signs of Hatch’s arrival. The plan was to link up after dark but the particular arrangements and signals had been made out of earshot. Or the team had worked together long enough that no special preparations were necessary.

 

Shaq was on watch at sunset when he poked his head through a window and said, “You’ve got to see this” and motioned them outside.

 

The bronze sky, still sheeted with high, thick, even clouds, had grown even bronzer. They could no longer see the sun which had descended too far to the west. But off to the east, a broad, diffuse patch of golden light lit the clouds from below. As though somewhere well to the west, some giant Homeric hero had laid his shield face down like a shallow bowl where it collected and recast the sun’s dying light.

 

None of them had seen anything like it. They could only stare. After five minutes, it faded and dusk descended over the dire landscape as if the spectacle had never been.

 

When they hooked up with Hatch and Jones an hour later, the first words out of Taniqua’s mouth were, “Did you see that sunset? What the hell was that?”

 

Kilbane knew Emily would have an explanation but he was at a loss.

 

“Maybe that means it’s clear to the west,” Shaq offered.

 

Which would make sense if the cloud cover ended somewhere out of sight and the water was acting as a huge mirror. Like a sign or an omen from an oracle that none of them could quite sort out. Nor did they have time to.

 

While Jones debriefed her people on their encounter with Katz, Hatch and Kilbane reconned the tower and discussed the next stage of the operation.

 

The tower sat firmly within the intertidal range of the Gulf. At the moment its entrance lay under a foot of water. Through the maze of streets and buildings in the channel between the islands, the waves more swelled and lapped than crashed. Most of that energy had been dispersed and absorbed along the edge of the old shoreline now a mile or more out.

 

“We’ll wait for the tide to go out,” Hatch said as the others joined them. “It’s too cold to soak our boots.”

 

The tower sat adjacent to an old city park. All its trees were years dead from saltwater intrusion. Most had been stripped of their deadfalls and branches long ago. The island, even with limited inhabitants, was critically short of fuel. Most people were down to burning scavenged lumber.

 

And somehow, they’d have to haul enough combustibles up to the roof to light a signal fire large enough to be seen across five miles of water littered with the drowned detritus of civilization.

 

They didn’t get long to observe the tower for signs of life before a sea fog rolled in, dense and penetrating. As the temperature dropped and the full tide of night descended, the fog began to freeze, accumulating in a layer of hoar frost on any exposed surface, Hatch’s mini-binoculars, Monique’s pistol, Kilbane’s eyebrows.

 

With the upper floors of the tower now obscured, Hatch sent Shaq and Monique on a quick recon of the surrounding area, searching for tracks in the snow, firelight, the scent of smoke, and other telltale signs of activity and occupation. They found none.

 

“Ok,” Hatch said, “we may as well start gathering wood.”

 

Kilbane shook his head. “Don’t bother. Unless I miss my guess, we’ll find what we need inside.”

 

Jones scowled. “Did you see that place? It’s been raided. Almost all the windows halfway up are broken out.”

 

Kilbane nodded. “The first five floors are probably picked clean. Up to ten, more selectively. Human nature always favors the path of least resistance. No one’s hauling anything bulky or heavy down fifteen flights of stairs.”

 

Reluctantly, Hatch agreed. The risk of gathering wood or other fuel and then carrying it across open ground to the entry was outweighed by the possibility of finding what they needed closer to the top. Worst came to worst, they’d wait another night. There wasn’t a strict timetable, although Kilbane knew cautious speed was necessary.

 

None of which would matter if the fog didn’t clear.

 

So, they alternated watches and waited for the water to recede. Hatch didn’t send out another patrol, trying to limit their own tracks in the snow. Mostly the group struggled to stay warm. Jones and Hatch had packed in additional cold rations that they passed around. As they all ate, they pined for the days of self-heating MREs. Which led to wondering if the Humanitarian Daily Rations came with a heater. And whether they tasted better or worse than what the Army had concocted. Which then led back to the most and least favorite MRE meals, and food hacks in the field, like Ranger pudding. Which they all wished they could mix up a batch of now.

 

Several cold hours later, the tide relented enough that they could make their way across the mudflat to the tower entrance. The fog concealed their movements. The ground was slick, the footing treacherous. Kilbane had to fight to keep his attention from tunnel-visioning down to each step and the cold.

 

Once they’d crossed over, Hatch assigned Jones and Monique to stand watch on the ground floor. Kilbane had assumed it would have been Shaq instead of Jones to keep the team together. But Shaq was bigger and could carry more. By that logic, though, it should have been Jones instead of Kilbane. He had no doubt she could outlift him. But he knew he wasn’t getting out of hauling fuel. It was his signal.

 

In the foyer, now open to the elements, every unpainted or peeled surface was wallpapered with mold. Wherever wallboard had been exposed to water, it had swelled and blackened. The interior had been looted and vandalized. The walls now bore an urban graffiti décor, mostly repetitious, sophomoric, and uninspired. The mural artists who had once livened the cityscape with their colorful creative works were long gone. Kilbane was glad Katz didn’t have to see the more rabid, hateful symbols that now adorned her mother’s former home, though knowing her, she already had.

 

“We’ll scope out the roof first,” Hatch said as they entered the emergency stairwell. “Then we’ll start on the top floor and work out way down. Let’s hope you’re right, Kilbane.”

 

As it turned out, he was as much right as wrong.

 

The way to the roof was clear. The top door had been pried open long ago and would no longer latch. Ice rimed the metal jam and threshold, and coated the steel fire door itself. Stepping carefully out onto the raised maintenance walkway for the AC condensers lining the center of the roof, Kilbane felt the bite of the freezing fog. Every exposed piece of metal was spiked with ice crystals like tiny quartz formations. Like the Siberian winter scene from Dr. Zhivago.

 

“We can use the AC units as a platform,” Kilbane said. When the other two just stared at him, he added. “It might take a while to get the acknowledgment. No sense burning the place down while we wait.”

 

Now Hatch nodded. “Let’s hope there’s something left to burn. Not that it matters tonight if this damned fog doesn’t lift. Might as well get to it. It’s warmer inside.”

 

Not long into the search for fuel, Kilbane realized how badly he’d underestimated the desperation or sheer maliciousness of the island’s detained population. Some clever soul had forced the doors and raided the apartments inside. Anything valuable, edible, burnable, or otherwise useful was gone. Unit after unit fifteen floors up. Even Hatch looked stunned.

 

When Kilbane wondered aloud what they had done with the furniture, it was Shaq who enlightened him.

 

“They probably threw it out,” he said, pointing to an open picture window without an inch of glass. “Why haul it downstairs? Just toss it. The higher the better. Saves time breaking it up later.

 

When both Hatch and Kilbane just stared at him, he shrugged self-consciously. “That’s how I would have done it, anyway.”

 

Kilbane looked at Hatch wondering if his own face held the same expression. The big man was a practical genius.

 

Their luck didn’t turn until they were down on thirteen when they pried open a storage unit tucked around a corner of the hall out of sight. Inside, it was stuffed with furniture and antiques.

 

“Jackpot,” Hatch said when he shined a tiny, solar-charged light inside. All Queen Anne’s feet and cherry wood, quality that had been hard to find well before the meteors fell.

 

“Seems a shame to burn it,” Shaq said as he surveyed the cache from the doorway. The man had become an origami surprise to Kilbane, continually unfolding.

 

After conceding that it would, they agreed they didn’t have a better option and began transferring it to the roof. It reminded Kilbane of his post-college days helping friends only with no pizza or beer waiting at the top.

 

By the time they’d relayed the third load up, their luck improved again. The fog lifted as quickly as it had appeared. Kilbane could see the trailing edge of clouds to the east. To the west, the stars sparkled. No doubt the clear air was colder.

 

But the exertion of breaking up the furniture inside the doorway on the concrete landing warmed him, at least temporarily. While Shaq went back for a final load, in case they needed to feed the fire, Hatch produced a box of strike-anywhere matches and a bundle of a half dozen rough, short sticks that looked like kindling shaved from splitting logs.

 

“Georgia fatwood,” he answered Kilbane’s quizzical expression. “Soaked in pine sap, goes up like a torch. You want the honors?”

 

“Seems like you know what you’re doing,” Kilbane replied. “I’m content to follow your lead.”

 

Hatch nodded. He first lit one of the pieces of fatwood, which caught like an enthusiastic, guttering candle. He then held the flame to the ragged edges of the broken furniture before dropping it deeper in. Between the varnish and the long-dried wood, the pile was soon a blaze, then a bonfire.

 

Hatch shuffled his feet as he warmed his hands. “How long do we wait?” he asked as he turned to warm his backside.

 

Kilbane shrugged, flexing his fingers which felt like their veins were clogged with ice. “Wish I knew.”

 

They agreed that if they didn’t see a response within an hour, they likely wouldn’t and would be forced to try again the next night. Neither commented on the accumulated risk, from other prisoners or the Third. There was no way anyone on their island could miss a signal fire a hundred and fifty feet in the air if they were out. When they’d chosen the site, Morten had calculated it would be visible for just over sixteen miles.

 

When Shaq returned with the final load, he immediately set to stamping out embers that drifted to the tar-covered flat roof. Hatch and Kilbane stood at the edge of the roof, alternating scanning the horizon below, wondering if the right people had seen their signal.

 

They didn’t have long to wait. Nor did they need Hatch’s compact binoculars. Hall, or more likely Klose, hadn’t opted for subtlety. First one fire appeared from the darkness, then another. Within five minutes three distinct blazes burned, one apart, two together. It looked like someone had set whole houses alight, each at least a block apart.

 

“The first is the acknowledgment,” Kilbane pointed as Shaq moved up to join them. “The other two are the timetable. The boat lands in two nights.”

 

“And if we’d had to wait a week,” Shaq asked, staring at the far island curiously.

 

Kilbane shrugged. “Then half that neighborhood with be alight. We had to keep it simple.”

 

“What if there was a delay or a no-go,” Hatch asked.

 

“A delay would have been one fire and we’d be back up here tomorrow. No-go was never a possibility we considered.”

 

Before either of the other men could question further, three shots rang out from below. Bang, bang, bang. Measured and unhurried.

 

“Jones has trouble,” Hatch interpreted as they looked at each other.

 

They all bolted from the roof, leaving the fire along with all the evidence of their activity behind.

 

Kilbane lost his footing on the ice just inside the roof doorway. Shaq caught his arm and kept him from going down. They pounded down the stairs two and three at a time, any weariness left far in their wake. When they burst into the lobby, Jones was waiting. Monique and her pistol were silhouetted against a missing window.

 

“Three of them,” Jones whispered. “Creeping cautious but determined. Watched them as long as I could. They scattered when Monique took her shots but they’ll be back”

 

“A patrol from the Third?” Shaq asked.

 

Monique shook her head. “Locals more likely.”

 

“The Third won’t be far behind,” Hatch said. “Ok people, we disperse and link up at the rally point. Kilbane, you’re with Jones. Grab her belt if you have to, but stick with her. Taniqua, make sure he doesn’t get lost. We need him. We’re committed to this now.”

 

With that, Hatch’s team faded like shadows at dusk in four different directions. Only Kilbane and Jones remained together.

 

 

7

 

Two marginally warmer nights later, Kilbane waited at an improvised pier on the south of the island, deep in Hatch’s territory. The previous two days had seen a flurry of preparation by Hatch’s people. His reliable cadre had been notified of impending action and had begun drifting toward assembly points. Only after they’d been armed would he begin reaching out to the less reliable. It didn’t leave much time to get things organized but Hatch deemed infosec a higher priority. They would only get one shot at this.

 

The first wrinkle to the plan came when Hatch’s recon team reported that the ferry had docked downtown just before dusk. No prisoners were offloaded. No extra security was evident. Kilbane was at a loss to explain. He could only hope Klose and Tran would enlighten them when the boat arrived.

 

Moonlight kissed the roof of the middle school where they waited. Lookouts watched the bayou and flooded golf course, as well as the landward neighborhoods behind them. The full moon was a double-edged sword. It gave both sides more visibility and made concealing movements more difficult. In the end, Kilbane figured Klose had decided the additional light benefited their operation by neutralizing the sheriff’s advantage. The county officers had night vision equipment. Kilbane had no hope of acquiring any. Another in an endless line of risks.

 

At least the weather had turned which again created a dual risk. The snow had mostly melted except in a few deeply shaded spots. The temperatures hovered about ten degrees above freezing, still see your breath territory but not dangerously cold except on the water. The air was generally still, with an intermittent light, variable breeze. The waters of the Gulf were relatively calm in the channel between the islands. While that was good for moving the ferry quickly once they captured it, it was also good flying weather for the sheriff’s helo. They could only hope Hall’s demonstration occupied it long enough that it would have to commit to a search pattern for the ferry.

 

“We’ve got movement,” one of Hatch’s watchmen called out. “A boat.”

 

Kilbane scanned the submerged golf course that acted as the approach to the school roof where they stood. Even with the heads up, it took a moment for him to spot it. Puttering along at trawling speed. Midway through the inlet, it idled and flashed a signal.

 

“That’s them,” Kilbane said. Hatch flashed back the countersign.

 

The boat started moving again, picking its way across the flooded landscape to the partially submerged school buildings. Within minutes, it was tied up alongside the corrugated aluminum covering of the old bus drop-off lane. Low profile hull, open cockpit, huge twin-engine outboards. The upper deck cover looked like it had been painted to blend in with the open water. Klose stepped onto the roof while Tran began accessing the cargo area. They were both dressed vastly different than the last time Kilbane had seen them. Camo fatigues were now the order of the day, Tran in a pixilated forest pattern, Klose in urban gray.

 

“Nice ride,” Kilbane said to Klose, now standing beside him. “Better than I expected. How much did that set us back?”

 

“Not much according to Darby,” his XO answered, as she watched Tran direct Hatch’s people. “Turns out gold is more valuable than square grouper these days. And if the op works, we might be able to trade it back.”

 

“Enough fuel for the return trip?” he asked.

 

Klose nodded. “All the way to the mainland if needed. Farther if we don’t open it up. By far the best deal Darby made.”

 

Hatch and Jones stood beside them now. Shaq and Monique were coordinating with Tran to get the cargo offloaded.

 

“That sounds a bit ominous,” Kilbane said., reading her tone. “How’d we do on hardware?”

 

“Not as good,” Klose admitted. “Eighty ARs from Darby’s contact turned into fifty at the last minute with a dozen assault shotguns and another ten nine-mil carbines, plus pick of the litter to round it out to our original agreement.”

 

Jones made a disgusted shushing sound like the opening of a curse. Hatch shook his head slowly.

 

“Ammo?” Kilbane tried to keep on track, hoping for a bright side.

 

“As advertised,” Klose responded. “A hundred rounds each, plus a spare clip. Fifty-fifty hollow point and jacketed for the nines. The twelve-gauge a mix of shots. A half dozen boxes of slug.”

 

Jones could no longer contain herself. “You do know the sheriff’s tactical units have body armor, right?”

 

Klose eyed the other woman before looking up at Kilbane and Hatch. “Best we could do. Darby got her to make up for some of it with other equipment. We’ve got radios, unencrypted but decent range. One of the bolt actions has a Starlight scope, sighted in she claims. 7.62 NATO.”

 

“Got anybody sniper qualed?” Kilbane asked Hatch, trying to derail his discontent.

 

The militia leader nodded, turning to Jones. “Prioritize the ARs to our people. Make sure Shaq gets that sniper rifle. Distribute the shotguns to every other member of the strike team. Give the nines to the kids we collect. Load them with alternating rounds. At least they’ll make some noise.”

 

“Body armor?” Kilbane asked Klose.

 

“Three,” she answered, unable to keep the bitterness at bay. “I assigned them to the medics. Darby did come through with medical supplies. Improvised but Cat seemed happy.”

 

“So, we get shot up but good treatment?” Jones said, shaking her head, mirroring Klose’s tone. “Fantastic.”

 

“Sorry, but it gets worse,” Klose said, then paused. “They know we’re coming.”

 

“What?! How?” Kilbane replied. Hatch and Jones exchanged a meaningful look.

 

“O’Grady’s people saw the signal,” Klose said. “He put two and two together from Hall’s whisper campaign. Saw three lights so assumed three days. According to a source, they’re already prepping for tomorrow night. They’re setting up an ambush at the ferry terminal. They still think that’s the objective.”

 

“Explains why they parked the ferry early,” Hatch said, nodding ruefully.

 

“This op is so fucked,” Jones added.

 

“Hall’s source reliable?” Kilbane asked, cutting her off.

 

Klose shrugged. “LeSean converted Fox. Surprisingly easy from what I heard. I guess he wanted more of your tobacco. Says O’Grady is quietly calling up his reserves.”

 

Kilbane let out an extended sigh.

 

“Has O’Grady shared that with the Third?” Hatch asked, still professional.

 

“Unknown,” Klose replied, spreading her hands.

 

“If not, he will,” Hatch said, watching as his people began to unload boxes of guns and ammo from the boat. “Or West will put it together himself. He must have spies.”

 

Kilbane thought furiously. The operation was slipping sideways quickly, quicker than he’d expected. And there was still no sign of Katz. Without her, none of it was likely to matter.

 

When he looked up, he found the others watching him, clearly waiting. He delayed. “Let’s get this stuff off the roof. I’m feeling pretty exposed up here.”

 

“And the boat?” Klose asked, hooking a thumb over her shoulder.

 

“Leave it tied,” Kilbane answered. “You and I will go back before dawn.”

 

They finished unloading the weapons and cases of ammunition and began transferring them up to the higher roof of the main building, across a series of other buildings, and then down a set of temporary bleachers Hatch’s people had scissored open against a wall on the far side of the complex, creating an improvised if treacherous staircase to the raised sports field where the cargo carts waited on slightly higher ground. It amazed Kilbane how much variation there was in elevation in this seemingly flat terrain. A rise or fall of six feet could be the difference between above and below water or existence in a narrow tidal zone.

 

Aside from the lookouts, everyone on Hatch’s team hauled boxes. After the carts were loaded, Hatch turned to Kilbane. “What’s the plan? I need to know where to send these.”

 

Kilbane took a long look around. A steady breeze had begun to kick up, cold and biting. Still no sign of Katz. Likely a no-show. He shook his head. “We stick to the plan but move up the timetable. We seize the ferry and go tonight.”

 

Whatever response any of the others were expecting, it clearly wasn’t that.

 

Jones broke the stunned silence. “You did hear the part where they know we’re coming, right?”

 

“No choice,” Kilbane replied with a shrug. “We have to move before West does his own math. We still have a day of tactical surprise.”

 

“We don’t even know if the LZ will be hot,” Jones said. “For all we know, they could be setting up tonight.”

 

“Klose and I will take the boat and recon. We’ll radio back whether to proceed to the primary landing or divert to the secondary.”

 

“The fuck you say,” Jones snapped. “By the time you know, we’ll already be on the water, no turning back.”

 

“You got a better idea,” Kilbane said. “The longer we wait, the worse this gets.”

 

“You bet I’ve got a better idea,” Jones shot back. “We load up the ferry with all we’ve got and head for the mainland. We disperse inland and harass them, hit and run. Insurgency tactics.”

 

Kilbane shook his head. A commotion across the street caught his eye. At first, he thought it was the wind. Then he spotted a knot of Hatch’s sentries were arguing just out of earshot, clearly animated.

 

“You’d never make it,” Kilbane said, eyeing them, not looking at Jones.

 

“Why’s that?” She stepped into his line of sight. Tran looked equally interested in his answer.

 

“That squad of H-60s from the naval air station will be on you before you land, or soon after,” he said, trying to catch a glimpse over her shoulder of the continued activity behind her. “That’s if the cutter doesn’t intercept you.”

 

It only took a second of renewed silence for Kilbane to realize his mistake. He’d slipped from inattention. When he shifted his focus back to Jones, she had an I-knew-it expression blossoming.

 

Hatch spoke before she could, his tone professionally measured but cutting like an open razor. “You told me those assets had been repositioned.”

 

Kilbane was no longer paying attention. The dispute at the perimeter was quickly becoming an altercation.

 

“I said they were being reassigned. A work in progress,” Kilbane said, not meeting any of the hostile glares, still eyeing the confrontation between the houses. “Excuse me, but I need to handle this.”

 

He strode toward the cluster of militia leaving a pool of incredulity in his wake. It took Klose only half a second to follow, trotting to catch up. “What the hell, Dave? Are you trying to blow this up?”

 

Kilbane ignored her. As he approached the now confused clump of soldiers, he spotted her. Somewhere, she’d dug up a deck uniform, maybe stashed in her mother’s attic, her go bag in one hand, her survival rifle slung crosswise over her chest. She was holding her own against Hatch’s noncoms by demeanor and bearing alone. A neat trick as she only came up to most of their shoulders. They hadn’t laid hands on her yet but were about to. Katz.

 

“Gentlemen,” Kilbane said, projecting his voice not to yell but distinctly to be heard. “Let her through. She’s with me.”

 

The squad leader turned toward his voice with an expression of and-who-the-fuck-are-you. Then it softened and he motioned his men to let Katz pass. Kilbane felt rather than saw Hatch at his shoulder.

 

Kilbane ignored him for the moment. “Glad you could make it, Deborah. Any trouble?”

 

“Not until I got here,” she replied. She surveyed the loading area. “I see you were serious.”

 

“You want to tell me what’s going on here, Kilbane.” Hatch now sounded like he was addressing a subordinate, or about to dress one down.

 

Kilbane short-circuited it with an introduction. “Master Sergeant Duane Hatch, Commander Deborah Katz, USCG.”

 

“Pleased to finally meet you, ma’am,” Hatch said. Although his tone was pointed, he extended a hand.

 

Katz shook it, firmly. “Wish the circumstances were different, sergeant.”

 

Hatch turned back to Kilbane, his expression once again carved in stone. “You want to tell me what this is about now?”

 

Katz cocked an eye at him. Klose rolled her eyes and shook her head. Tran watched him warily.

 

Kilbane smiled. “Change of plan. Klose stays with Tran. She can drive the ferry. She knows the waters and has a map of the mines. Katz and I will head back to the main island. We’ll keep those H-60s off your back. But if we want any chance for this to succeed, we can’t wait. It has to be tonight.”

 

This time the silence only lasted one shocked instant before erupting. While Kilbane waited for the objections to subside and reality to set in, Jones whispered in his ear. “You ghosty motherfucker, I knew I couldn’t trust you.”

 

Hatch whistled the others to silence.

 

“Convince me,” he said with a hardened voice as he stared down Kilbane.

 

So Kilbane began to lay out the plan again with the clarity that had crystallized in his mind. All the details this time. Everything but Emily.

 

When he finished, Hatch shook his head slowly. “Sounds like you’re trying to make us into heroes. The kind they build statues of in Olympia.”

 

“More like names and dates on plaques mounted to that marble wall across the channel,” Jones said, still staring at Kilbane harshly. “You fucking used us. You’re running your own game.”

 

“Look around you,” Kilbane said, again adopting his command voice, sweeping a hand across the abandoned school and nearby houses. “If we stay here, in a year no one remembers whether we lived or died.”

 

He was met with smoldering expressions and unconvinced silence all around. Klose opened her mouth and then chose to say nothing, closing it again. Tran wisely kept his mouth shut, although he clearly didn’t want to. Katz waited patiently to see how it all played out.

 

“Look,” Kilbane finally said in his last shot at salvaging the situation, “If we get her to the air station, we end up with an Air Force and a Navy. With a cutter and a squad of H-60s, we can hold this island.”

 

“Temporarily,” Jones muttered, shaking her head.

 

“You got more pressing appointments in your date book, Specialist?” Kilbane met her glare unflinchingly before sweeping his gaze across the others. “In less than a month, this place won’t exist, at least not with us in it. They’re using the same playbook that we saw in Ukraine. The same playbook they tried in New England. West and his people are going to liquidate us first, then the main island before they claim it as their own. Not just fighters, everyone. Your families and kids deported as refugees to tent cities along the Lake Wales Ridge, or to work camps in the panhandle.”

 

He continued after a brief pause to let that sink in. “We’ve got one shot to stop that. That shot is in Olympia. We all took an oath. That oath lies with them.”

 

A deathly stillness greeted him. Even Klose seemed to hold her breath. Katz ignored his change of plans. Back at the house, he’d told her all she needed to do was keep those helos grounded until they held the island. But you didn’t get to be an aspiring eagle by letting people lead you down a garden path. She knew. She always knew.

 

“If we do this,” Hatch broke the silence pointedly, “we’re not going to be Mariupol, right? We’re not going to be East Longmeadow. The goal is to succeed, not just to send a message.” He glared at Kilbane like the aggrieved sergeant he was. “Right?”

 

“Right.” Kilbane nodded, meeting Hatch’s eye with an open expression he hoped would pass for honesty. “Otherwise, none of our names survive. But we have to move before our tactical surprise evaporates.”

 

Hatch continued evaluating Kilbane long and hard. Jones just stared at her commander, slowly shaking her head as if to say don’t do this. Don’t trust him. Without meeting his second’s eye, Hatch sighed, then reluctantly nodded his approval.

 

“We go tonight,” he finally said and began issuing orders to his people.

 

While he did, Jones leaned in close to Kilbane one more time. “But if you think for one hot second that I am letting you out of my sight until this op is over, Scammer, you’ve lost your goddamned mind.”

 

 

Part 3 (Chapters 8-10)

 

© 2022 Edward P. Morgan III