Resurrection America Page 7

  Morris had also made good on his promise to her that her work would remain non-weaponized. Genysis as a company refused all military contracts as part of their mission statement, part of the attraction for young idealistic geniuses coming to work there. Her suspicion that Morris had fallen off that path was what prompted her to secretly place the sensors in the mine on the way out. She’d used the word we when she described to Rick the placement of the sensors on the data line. In reality, there was no we. She’d done it in secret herself, not even telling her closest assistants about it. If the lab and her work were being used for military purposes, she wanted to know.

  She took the switchback on the road carefully, glancing down the steep drop on the side and wishing she’d rented an SUV instead of driving her electric-powered Ford Mustang. It was pretty and fast, a throwback to the glory years of American prowess, but it had no business being on a dirt road. Although the same could be said of herself. If anything, she should have delegated the task to some low-level employee to check out the data fluctuations from the mine and get back to her.

  But there were three complications to that. First, the sensors she’d left behind weren’t supposed to be there to begin with. She’d taken great pains to hide them from the techies that scanned the area once the lab shut down. While it would be easy for her to find them again, trying to explain their location to someone else would have been nearly impossible and made her look like she’d lost her mind. Second, if the sensors, which were her own creation, were malfunctioning somehow, she wanted to know why out of professional pride. And third … well, that was the toughest one. She hated to admit it, but the first two reasons were BS and she knew it. Once the sensor had gone off, she’d jumped at the opportunity to come up to Resurrection to see Rick. But the way he’d acted so strangely had piqued her interest in what might actually be going on at the old mine.

  “Shit,” she said, hitting the brakes and sliding the Mustang to a stop on the gravel.

  In front of her, stretched across the road, was a thick fallen pine tree blocking her way. She sat with the engine idling, looking back and forth across the length of the tree. The needles were still all green so it was a recent fall. There didn’t seem to be any way around it that didn’t include going off-road, something she wasn’t about to try with her Mustang. She calculated where she was on the winding road in relation to the mine, and estimated how long a hike up the mountain would take. The distance wasn’t the problem, but she knew the elevation gain would destroy her. Twenty minutes a day on a treadmill followed by twelve hours at a desk in a computer lab wasn’t exactly great training for an alpine climb.

  She got out of the car and walked over to the end of the fallen tree. She hadn’t seen any other debris on the way up that she would have expected if there’d been a storm in the area over the last few days. It was curious that this particular tree, perfectly placed to block the road, had fallen here. Part of her expected to see a saw cut and a pile of wood chips at the stump, proof that someone had closed down the road on purpose.

  But when she got to the base she saw the entire root system still hung from the end, covered with fresh dirt. The hole in the ground was on the edge of a steep slope, right on a drainage ditch for the road. It wasn’t hard to imagine the tree growing for years with its base slowly being eroded away with every rain. Her conspiracy theory of someone trying to stop her from going up the mountain lost its steam. The only conspirator seemed to be Mother Nature, and she didn’t usually pick sides in disputes.

  Cassie walked the length of the tree, the curious part of her scientific mind looking for anything of interest. She saw a large bird’s nest but no eggs on the ground. Spring was for babies, not the fall right before the mountains descended into the ravages of winter. She stared at the empty nest, feeling a swell of emotion at the sight, surprised to find that she was blinking back tears.

  Logically, she knew her response was disproportionate, that she was assigning more meaning to the broken nest than was healthy. The scientist in her knew that she was experiencing a hormonal surge as her body communicated to her that her last few years to bear children were upon her. But knowing that, even being at peace with her decision not to have kids, did nothing to protect her. The body didn’t fight fairly. Its programming told it that the continuation of the species was a prime directive and it could use any means necessary to get more humans into the world. It was the reason she found herself staring at new mothers with their children. And why she had to fake her smiles at baby showers thrown for her friends. Intellectually, she was at peace with her decision. Emotionally, she was a wreck. She knew over time her intellect would win the fight. It always did.

  And it looked like Rick had won his fight too. The trek up the mountain was doable but it was more than she was willing to bite off. She didn’t have any water, and a quick check of her phone showed that there was no cell service. All she needed was to twist her ankle on the top of the mountain and have to hobble all the way back down. No, she would wait it out and go up with Rick as planned. With his Blazer, he could cut a trail around the tree or just tie on to it and winch it to the side. It was only twenty-four hours, and there was the Fall Festival between now and then. She took a deep breath and decided to try to relax for a day, something she hadn’t done in the last three years. It would be good for her.

  13

  Keefer watched the woman on the surveillance camera’s feed as she turned and climbed back into her car. She mangled the three-point turn on the road but eventually got the Mustang around and headed back down the mountain toward Resurrection. He was surprised she hadn’t noticed the marks on the tree trunk where the chains had been attached by his men when they pulled the large pine down across the road. For all Morris’s talk of her genius, she’d missed big clues, but it was a miss that had saved her life.

  He didn’t like to kill people and avoided it unless it was completely necessary. He doubted the history books would reflect that fact about him. In fact, he knew they wouldn’t. He would be labeled a monster, he would be vilified and hated, but it didn’t matter. He would know the truth and someday the world would come to thank him. At least the part of the world he cared about would. Hell, they might even erect statues in his honor. Keefer grinned at the thought. He would like that.

  Keefer pulled out his cell. No signal. He signaled the young soldier manning the communications station. After flicking a few switches, the soldier nodded for Keefer to go ahead. He looked back down and saw there were five bars. He pressed a number and waited for the person on the other end to pick up. He didn’t mind letting Cassie Baker off his mountain, but he wanted to make sure she didn’t come back.

  “Sheriff,” he said into his phone, “this is Keefer. You’ve got a problem.”

  14

  Rick hung up the phone. He didn’t know how Keefer had gotten his cell number, but he did know he hated feeling like he was on call to do the man’s bidding. It’d been a long time since he’d taken orders from anyone, let alone from a smug bastard like Keefer. He swallowed hard, trying his best to hide his frustration with the position he found himself in.

  “Who was that?” Dahlia asked. They’d finished folding the pile of brochures and were now helping with the vendor welcome packs.

  “You know how it is,” he said. “Someone’s always getting into trouble somewhere in this town.”

  “If only we had better policing.”

  “Hey now,” he said, giving her a pinch and then a kiss. He enjoyed how natural it already felt to be affectionate with her in public. “I’ve got to go check on things.”

  “Check on things, huh? Sounds like someone’s trying to get out of work,” Dahlia said.

  Rick pointed to the spools of ribbon she and three other ladies were using to add flourishes to the vendor care packages. “Folding paper I can do. This stuff you’re doing now is way above my pay grade.” He leaned in a little closer, but kept his voice loud enough for the other ladies to hear. “Dinner tonight at m
y place? You and Charlie?”

  Dahlia blushed, but she smiled. He could tell she liked being out in the open about their relationship too, even if it was going to take some time to get used to. “You bet.”

  “Great, I’ve got some great frozen pizzas.”

  “Make it my place,” she said. “Seven o’clock.”

  Rick pretended to be offended. “You don’t like my pizza?”

  She shooed him out the door and he took the chance to duck out. He looked back through a side window and saw the other ladies peppering Dahlia with questions now that he was finally out of earshot. He worried that it might be overwhelming for her, but she seemed happy. And, to his own surprise, he felt pretty damn good himself.

  His mood soured when he looked across the square to the Franklin Hotel. Most of the rooms in the old place were occupied as rental units, but there were still a few traditional hotel rooms available. It was where Cassie was supposed to be staying, but a quick scan of the parking spots showed that her fancy electric Ford Mustang was nowhere to be seen, further confirming what Keefer had told him on the phone.

  He reached for his radio, thinking he would call Manny to tell him to be on the lookout for the car, but stopped himself. In the middle of the discovery on the mountain, Cassie’s arrival and the complications with Dahlia, he’d nearly forgotten about his missing deputy.

  Well, not really missing. The voice mail had been purposefully vague, but the message had been loud and clear. Manny had taken the money Keefer offered and gotten the hell out of town in a hurry. Rick pulled out his phone and called him, undecided if he was going to lay into the kid or guilt-trip him. Probably a little of both. But he didn’t get the chance. Voice mail.

  “Manny, it’s Rick.” He paused. A voice mail was a terrible way to communicate to start with, but he also knew that once he got going, he might say something he regretted. He’d given Manny a shot, gone out on a limb as Bertie had reminded him that morning. Taking a bribe and leaving the day before the town’s biggest day of the year was a funny way to repay the kindness. With the anger building, he knew leaving a long message wasn’t going to go well. Instead, he just said, “Got your message. Just call me to discuss.”

  He hung up and strode across the square to the hotel, noticing the automatic lights already clicking on. The days were getting shorter and a chill came down from the mountain on the evening breeze. Usually he preferred the longer summer days, but darkness falling meant he’d gotten through the first day of keeping the new mining operation a secret. Tomorrow the town would be busy with the Fall Festival so there was no reason for anyone to go exploring up the mountain. Then, if the Festival went well, the town would be fat and content after a day of eating, drinking and recalling better days. There would be cleanup to do and a Denver Broncos game on TV to keep everyone occupied. No one in town had been up to the mine in months and he didn’t see any reason why anyone would go up there during the most exciting day of the year.

  Anyone except Cassie.

  The Mustang turned the corner and drove down Elm Street to the hotel. Rick had a hint of nostalgia seeing the car’s clean, classic lines, but found himself missing the throaty sound of an internal combustion engine. He just couldn’t get used to the quiet hum of electric cars even though they far outnumbered gas cars on the road now. Even the military had transformed their fleet of vehicles once the battery technology enabled days of mission time on one charge. Still, in a fight, he preferred the older equipment. There was something undeniable about the roar of massive diesel engines when the cavalry rode in with their heavy armor to extract them from a tough position. He’d seen Jihadis scramble back into their tunnels just from the sounds of the engines, not something the hum of the electros would ever do.

  He watched the Mustang silently pull into a parking spot, subconsciously adding the soundtrack of a muscle car motor in his head. He remembered that Cassie used to tease him about being born ten or twenty years too late. When it came to music, movies, clothes and cars, she was right. But as he flexed his robotic left hand, articulating each finger individually, feeling the cold air on his hand as he did so, he knew he owed his quality of life to being born in today’s age. Twenty years ago he would have had a stiff, lifeless prosthetic with a metal claw at the end for picking at things. Then again, if he’d been born twenty years earlier, he might never have lost his arm fighting against the Jihadis to begin with.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you had me under surveillance, Sheriff,” Cassie said, climbing out of the car.

  “I’d only have to do that if I thought I couldn’t trust you to keep your word not to go up to the mine without me.” He nodded toward the Mustang’s tires and the dirt covering them. “Cruising the back roads for fun?”

  “Still have the passive-aggressive thing going on I see,” Cassie said. “If you want to accuse me of breaking our agreement, just say it.”

  “You broke our agreement.”

  “See? Didn’t that feel better?” She turned and walked up the steps in front of the Franklin Hotel.

  Rick bit the inside of his lip and shook his head, whole arguments from years earlier flooding back to him.

  “You promised,” he called out.

  “I promised not to go into the mine,” she said, barely slowing down. “I didn’t say anything about going up to the mine.”

  “That wasn’t what I meant and you––”

  Cassie stopped. “Doesn’t matter anyway. There’s a tree down near the bottom of the road. Blocks the whole thing. We’ll need to off-road to get around it or move it somehow.”

  He followed her up the steps until he was even with her. He had her by six inches and he noticed she took one extra step up so that she was taller than him. “If you’d listened earlier, I told you there was a tree in the road.”

  “See? You were right about something.”

  Rick shook his head. “Can we just agree that––“

  “I’m not going up there. The road’s blocked.”

  “Sorry if I’m not convinced, but letting obstacles stop you isn’t really your thing,” he said. “A tree in the road hardly seems like something that could stop you.”

  She smiled, obviously taking it as a compliment even though he didn’t mean it as one. More like a diagnosis of an illness.

  “Once you decide to do something,” he continued, “it doesn’t matter what it takes, right? As long as you accomplish your goals, everything else be damned.”

  He knew the comment would bite and he didn’t much care. The smile disappeared from her face.

  “So that’s how we’re going to do this?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You said everything else be damned. But what you wanted to say was everyone else be damned,” she said. “We’re talking about you. About us. OK then, let’s talk about it.”

  Rick felt a surge of heat on his neck and face as he prepared to engage. It was the conversation he’d played out a thousand times in his head since she’d left him. All the biting one-liners were ready. All the things to say that would hurt her the worst. He opened his mouth, but then stopped himself. He took a step back and slowly drew in a deep breath. A feeling of calm came over him as he realized he not only didn’t want to have the conversation, but that he didn’t need to have it either. Instead, he just shook his head and smiled. “What’s past is past. I’m fine leaving it there if you are. In fact, I’m going to leave it there even if you aren’t.”

  Cassie crossed her arms. She looked flustered for a second, geared up for a battle of words that apparently wasn’t coming. But she forced a smile. “That’s good with me. I just need your help getting into the mine tomorrow and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

  “After the festival.”

  “After the festival,” she agreed.

  “And you swear not to go up the mountain alone until then?”

  “I told you––”

  “Jesus, can you just swear it, Cassie?”

/>   “Okay, I promise not to go up there.”

  Rick turned his back and walked down the hotel steps. “Sleep good. Big day for Resurrection tomorrow.” As he walked away, he listened for the stairs creaking behind him, but there was nothing. He knew that if he turned around she’d be there, watching him walk away. It took a lot of willpower not to turn around.

  But dinner was waiting for him at Dahlia’s house. Bertie was right. He had a good thing going there.

  15

  Dinner was a hit. Rick ate two massive helpings of pot roast with carrots, onions and cabbage all over a bed of mashed potatoes and brown gravy. It was perfect comfort food. He’d treated Dahlia and Charlie to dinner at Roscoe’s before, but they’d never eaten at one of their own houses as a group. They’d convinced themselves that it was so they wouldn’t confuse Charlie, but the truth was they were both scared of it.

  Eating at home together felt like another step forward in whatever it was they were doing. But the night felt like the most natural thing in the world. They sat around the table, laughing, telling stories, listening to Charlie’s excitement over the festival the next day. Dahlia had changed from her work jeans and sweater into a dress, nothing fancy, but she looked beautiful as she beamed with pride at her boy. She had her hair brushed out and there was the soft scent of perfume in the air. Rick found himself unable to take his eyes off her.

  After dinner, they did the dishes together while Charlie got his pajamas on for bed. The small TV was on with the sound turned down. Rick glanced over long enough to see a snippet of President Mayfield at a press conference. The ticker on the bottom of the screen indicated the president was announcing a new monument to be erected in memory of America’s civilian casualties, but the screen flashed to an aerial view of the devastated landscape of Washington, DC. Rick’s stomach clenched even though he’d seen the footage a thousand times before. The flyby started right over the spot where the twenty-kiloton bomb had gone off near the White House, leaving just a smudge on the ground where President Harrison and most of his Cabinet had died five years earlier. The shot soared over the wreckage in the familiar smooth glide of a flying drone, moving to the ruins of the US Capitol building, not only scorched by the edge of the fireball, but shattered by the air blast. The loss of life that day had been devastating. Years of war and terrorism on America’s soil had hardened the public to body counts. But there was something about seeing America’s monuments decimated and left in charred ruins that still caused Rick to well up.