The Cyclops Initiative (26 page)

“Badass Julia isn't sure she believes you.”

“I wasn't talking to her. I was talking to Julia Taggart, DVM. I've loved you basically since we first met and I always will. You don't want to hear about Nadia, but I'm going to tell you this—­none of that would have happened if I wasn't so heartsick for you I couldn't see straight. I know that's not a very good defense, but it's true. When I came to your apartment, back when all this started—­I knew I was already being chased by the police. I knew I was in danger of being caught. But I came anyway because I thought maybe, just maybe you wanted to see me again. It didn't matter why. It would have been worth it because I got to see you again.”

Her face was guarded. “You are good, I'll give you that. You talk a great game.”

“Give me a chance to do more than just talk,” he said. “Wait. That sounded dirty. I meant it to be romantic.”

She rolled her eyes. “Maybe we will later. Talk, I mean. Go to bed, Captain Chapel. You need to heal. Your veterinarian insists.”

She stood up and started to turn away. But then she stopped and looked back at him. He had no idea what she was thinking.

Luckily Badass Julia wasn't about mixed signals. She reached under his sheet and grabbed his cock. It stiffened instantly in her hand.

“Get better soon,” she said, and then she left him there.

LOS ANGELES, CA: MARCH 23, 20:06 (PDT)

Behind the chain-­link fence nothing but anarchy held sway.

The National Guard had set up a temporary base at LAX. Patrick Norton, the secretary of defense, had flown in for an inspection. As he stepped off the plane he was led down a corridor formed by two rows of soldiers in full battle gear, every single one of them standing at attention, spaced exactly apart from one another. It was a perfect display of military discipline, designed to impress the absolute top brass.

A display that failed altogether once Norton could hear the protesters screaming just a few dozen yards away.

They pressed their faces against the fence, their mouths open, spittle flying in rage. He couldn't understand what any of them were shouting, but some of them carried signs he could read:

WE WON'T LIVE LIKE THIS

KATRINA 2.0

NO POWER NO PEACE

“Sir?”

Norton looked to his left and saw a guard captain waiting to lead him away. He nodded gratefully and followed the man into a Quonset hut full of radio gear. In the center of the prefab building stood a series of card tables, each of them covered in manila folders. The captain picked one up and handed it to the SecDef.

“This is your briefing, sir, which you can peruse at your leisure. I'd be happy to give you the salient points in verbal form, if you would prefer that.”

Norton took the folder and glanced at it for a second without opening it. Then he threw it back down on the table.

“Show me,” he said.

It took an age to get a helicopter ready to go—­the main concern seemed to be finding one that was properly armored, so that no one could shoot the secretary of defense out of the sky with a target pistol. Once they were airborne, though, Norton knew immediately he'd made the right choice. No paper briefing could give him the same perspective on the chaos that he got from the air.

For one thing—­he wouldn't have felt the darkness sprawling under him so intensely. Wouldn't have known just how apocalyptic it could feel. He'd flown over Los Angeles many times in his career and always, when you came in by night, the whole landscape glowed like it was on fire. Lights from the buildings bounced off the permanent cloud of smog and lit up the countryside for miles around.

Now there was nothing down there except where something actually
was
on fire. Just inky blackness, interrupted here and there by a burning trash can or a car that had been doused in gasoline and set ablaze in the middle of a street crossing. Norton wondered if the cars had been lit up as a form of protest, or just because the locals were so desperate for whatever light source they could find.

Off in the distance, in the hills, there were some electric lights still burning. And if Norton looked to the south, he saw whole neighborhoods that glowed just as brightly as they ever had. But downtown L.A. had reentered the nineteenth century.

“Is any power getting through? Even just for part of the day?” Norton asked over his headset microphone.

The captain consulted his handheld. “Yes, sir. We had four hours today, that's good for the average. Yesterday we had nothing. We get rolling blackouts that just kind of roll in and . . . stay. We've got the Army Corps of Engineers trying to put everything back together, get the grid online again, but their reports aren't encouraging. If I didn't know better, I'd think somebody was trying to stop them. They're telling me it's all computer problems, that every time they get a substation cleared, another one drops off-­line.” The captain shook his head. “It's going to be a matter of weeks, not days, before this is cleared up.”

Norton peered down into the soupy gloom. He occasionally thought he saw someone running on a sidewalk in the dark or a car moving between palm trees, but it was hard to tell.

Off to the east a blare of light alleviated the darkness, like a cloud of fire hovering over the black landscape. “What's that?” Norton asked.

“Sir, that's Dodger Stadium, it's our relief station. We've got gasoline generators out there working all night. We've advised anyone in distress to head there; we've got medical teams, clean water, some communications—­”

“Let me see,” Norton commanded.

The captain clearly didn't think it was a good idea, but he said nothing. The helicopter swung around and headed directly for the light, which soon enough Norton could see came from the big stadium lights that normally illuminated nighttime ball games. “We keep those on from dusk until dawn,” the captain explained. “Some ­people . . . they just want the light, that's all. They just need to get out of the dark.”

Norton turned to look at the man. “What about crime? Looting, violence, that sort of thing. Have you seen any riots?”

“The governor has us sweeping the streets, sir, on a constant basis. We do what we can to keep things calm.”

“That's a nice nonanswer,” Norton told the man. “Tell me the truth.”

The captain looked down into the darkness. “Rioting is the main problem. The ­people are actually sticking together, forming neighborhood security groups. But they don't trust us. There's a bunch of them think we aren't doing enough. There have been a ­couple of armed clashes. A ­couple of civilians have been shot. When this is over, there's going to be a reckoning. A lot of us in command wonder if we're going to get blamed.”

Norton frowned. “I'm sure you've acted in a professional manner.”

“Sir, with all due respect—­the ­people down here are righ­teously pissed.” The captain looked over at Norton, and his eyes were suddenly very tired. “We're keeping them from actually revolting in the streets. But if the power doesn't come back soon—­or worse, if something else bad happens, like wildfires or mudslides or, God forbid, an earthquake—­this place is going to explode.”

Norton remembered something he'd heard many years before, back at West Point.
Modern man is a miracle of civilization and sophistication. He is also three hot meals away from barbarism.

The helicopter pilot took them right over the stadium, low enough that Norton could see inside. The stadium lights gave him a great view of all the ­people in the seats—­tens of thousands of them. Families sprawled across whole rows, sleeping under orange survival blankets or patrolling the aisles with baseball bats and chains. Down on the field soldiers marched relief seekers—­Norton wondered if a better word was
refugees
—­through metal detectors and intake desks, forcing them to fill out paperwork before they could get food or clean water.

It didn't take long for them to notice the helicopter—­or to react. It started with a dull roar, so low and far away Norton thought it might be distant thunder, but soon the noise rose in pitch as the refugees below screamed up at the chopper, screamed for light or air-­conditioning or whatever it was they wanted most. He saw bits of debris floating over the crowd, and the occasional ribbon of white, and suddenly he realized—­they were throwing things at him. Government paperwork, empty MRE pouches. The ribbons were rolls of toilet paper unfurling as they arced through the air.

None of it could hit the chopper, of course. Norton was safe up there in the sky.

He was safe.

For the moment.

He pulled out his cell phone and plugged it into his headset. Dialed Charlotte Holman. They needed to talk. “I want you on a plane as soon as possible. Check with my staff for my itinerary. Meet me at my next stop.”

“Of course, sir. May I ask what this is concerning?”

“I want you by my side until this thing is over. I need constant reports and updates. From now forward—­nothing else matters.”

Because if Los Angeles was about to fall, it wouldn't take very long for the rest of the country to follow.

SOUTH HILLS, PA: MARCH 24, 08:14

Top, who had been a master gunnery sergeant in the Marines, had never looked worried in his life as far as Chapel knew. He didn't now, though there were little signs to see if you knew the man well. He wasn't smiling quite as broadly as he usually did. Instead of a glass eye, today he was just wearing an eyepatch. Of course, it was an eyepatch in a marine camouflage pattern, but even so.

“I got to get to work,” he said. “That hospital doesn't even wake up until I arrive to properly motivate folks. But before I go, we're going to settle this. The three of you are welcome in my house any time, for as long as you want.”

“It's too dangerous,” Chapel told him.

On the kitchen table between them lay Top's cell phone. He'd put it there so Chapel could listen to a voice-­mail message Top had received an hour earlier. A message from Brent Wilkes, asking if Top would be willing to come in to the local police station to answer some questions.

“I didn't think they would make the connection between you and me,” Chapel said, though saying it out loud made him realize how dumb he'd been. The NSA probably had a dossier on him a yard thick, and somewhere in there would be the fact that Top had worked with Chapel as his physical therapist after he came home from Afghanistan.

Most likely Wilkes was interviewing every known associate in Chapel's file. He'd probably bothered Chapel's parents and sister first, then worked his way down the list until he harassed Chapel's dry cleaner and his barber. Top would definitely be on the list. It only made sense to make those phone calls. Chapel was trained in how to live on the run, how to keep a low profile. But that was a hard road for a man to go alone. Most fugitives did exactly as Chapel had—­they found a friend who would hide them for a while.

“Could just be a coincidence,” Top pointed out.

“They believe in those, in the Marines? Coincidences? In the Rangers we used to say that a coincidence was guaranteed to be somebody getting ready to kill you.”

“In the Corps we just assumed everybody was doing that whether we saw any clues or not,” Top said. He shrugged, the empty sleeve of his work shirt flapping against his side. “All right, seeing as this guy is the one who tried to kill you the other night, I suppose we can assume the worst. But so what? I go in, he asks me, have you seen this man, I say, no, sir, can't say as I have. And then I walk back out.”

“He's trained in interrogation,” Chapel pointed out. “And he's an expert poker player, so he can spot a bluff. I should know—­I still owe him six bags of chips.”

Top shook his head. “I can't believe they'd send a ser­viceman after you. You army grunts sure know a bit about loyalty, don't you? You could try a little
semper fi
now and again.”

“Wilkes isn't army. He's a marine. MARSOC—­the Raiders.”

Top leaned back in his chair. “Aw, shit. Now we are in trouble. All right. So say you refuse my hospitality and get back in the wind. Where are you going to go next?”

“No idea. And it's probably best I don't tell you, anyway.”

Top nodded. “Sure.” He drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “So you want me to just blow this guy off? Never show up for my interview?”

“No. That'll definitely make him suspicious. Just—­don't say much. Answer his questions with as few words as possible. Act like you wished you could help but he's out of luck. It'll help if you know that when you're talking to him, I'll already be gone.”

Top got up from the table. “Any chance that when you go you'll leave one or more of those fine ladies behind to keep me company?”

Chapel grinned. “Dolores might mind.”

“She might at that. Okeydokey, smokey. You take care of yourself, Captain.”

Chapel looked away. He didn't want Top to see the look on his face. “I can't thank you enough,” he said.

“The bond you and me have is supposed to go beyond words,” Top told him. “Same as for all my boys. Not that you'd know from all the jawboning goes on around here twenty-­four seven. Now, I'm going to be late for work, and all the pretty nurses are on the night shift and if I don't get there on time, I miss my chance to make them blush.”

He grabbed the phone and left Chapel alone in the kitchen.

When he was gone, Chapel rubbed at his eyes with his good hand.

Crap. If Wilkes was interviewing Top, that meant he was sure that Chapel was still alive. Which meant going on the run again, no question. Just when Chapel had started to like it in the house full of Top's boys. It had begun to feel like he was back in the army again, living in barracks, something he never thought he would have missed.