The Living Will Envy The Dead (46 page)

And
, I thought silently,
if he is to blame for what happened to Summerville, even slightly, I won’t let him get away with it
.

Mac was thinking ahead.  “Do we arrest him or merely push him off a cliff or something?”

I winced.  If we moved openly against Schneider, he would claim that his political enemies were trying to get rid of him, even though there was little reason for them to bother.  Schneider might have put himself forward as a candidate, but unless I was much mistaken, he wasn't going to get many votes.  The only way he’d win would be through the Martin Prince method, in which everyone was so convinced that the other guy would win that they all stayed home.  That wasn't likely to happen in Ingalls, not with everyone watching the discussion like hawks.  Still, it could turn into a political nightmare…

It got worse.  The members of terrorist groups had been taught to claim that they were routinely tortured as soon as they were captured, regardless of the truth, just to cast doubt on the evidence.  A full confession could be struck down just because of the merest suggestion of torture, even if the bastard had been treated with kid gloves all the way, and it was almost impossible to refute such claims.  The media always loved it when the government looked bad and gleefully repeated the terrorist lies, but somehow the truth never got pushed forward.  How could we convict Schneider based on Daniel’s confession?  Any halfway competent lawyer could have cast doubt on it.  Hell, Daniel himself might have been lied to by someone higher up in the Warrior hierarchy.  He might have been primed with disinformation to confuse us.

But it rang true.  If it had been disinformation, why not accuse someone more prominent, in a position to do much more harm than merely annoying a few people?  What about accusing me, or Mac, or Walter, or…anyone?  Why pick on the town outcast?  I couldn’t see anyone disapproving of hanging him as quickly as possible, once we brought him to trial, and it certainly wouldn’t divide the community.

“We’ll go see him at first and see what he has to say for himself,” I said, grimly.  It was possible that we could use Schneider for disinformation ourselves, but it would require some thinking and planning.  If we could lure the Warriors into doing something stupid…

We went back through the prison and up to Richard’s office.  “We’re going back to town,” I said, once we’d briefly discussed what had happened in the cell.  Richard, oddly enough, had accepted the use of torture right from the start, although he had worked daily with even worse people.  It reminded me how little compassion he’d shown for the prisoners we’d poisoned.  “Keep Daniel secured and under guard, once Kit has finished with him.  We’ll have to ask him more questions later.”

There was a new smell in the air as we drove back towards Ingalls, a hint of burning wood, perhaps from the Wood Gas stoves we’d set up.  An engineer from Sweden had remembered the concept and, once we’d found it in a reference book, had constructed several of them to produce Wood Gas.  It wasn't easy to use – it produced Carbon Monoxide at dangerous levels – but we had little choice.  We’d also set up a Plasma Arc waste disposal system to produce power and other supplies.  Wasn’t it amazing how much you could do without Washington peering over your shoulder all the time?

Brent passed us through the defences quickly, once the guards had searched the vehicles.  The workers had expanded the level of defences enough – I hoped – that even a mass human wave attack would get hopelessly bogged down and torn to ribbons.  We weren't interested in playing games either.  The first sign of any vehicle and we’d hose it down with machine gun fire, just in case it was another truck bomb.  If we were really lucky, we might even detonate it in front of their forces, instead of ours.

“Look, boss,” Mac said, pointing towards a shape hanging in the sky.  “They’ve finally managed to get the balloon up in the air.”

I smiled.  The hot air balloon design actually came from the Civil War, although it had been improved slightly by people with an extra hundred and fifty-odd years of experience with metals and plastics.  It hung in the air, manned by three observers with binoculars, linked to the ground through a telephone cord.  They could observe anyone approaching the town from a far distance – well, certainly any large groups of men or vehicles – and sound the alert.  I just wished we had two of them.  There would be an interruption in their observation when they were hauled down to change crews.  After one embarrassing incident, no one even walked under the balloon.

“Yep,” I said, my mind elsewhere.  “We’ll get far more warning this time.”

Marc Schneider’s house was on the north side of town, larger than he and his family actually needed, or had ever needed.  It had been built by a merchant who’d lived in the town and been part of the community, but he'd lost it to the banks when he became overdrawn and it had been put up for sale.  The townspeople had resented, fiercely, not being allowed to bid for it themselves, but there’d been no point in complaining.  The banks could have outspent all of Ingalls if they so chose.  It had been bought by a man who’d no background in country life and no desire to learn.  He had thought that his position in the city gave him status and had been surprised to learn otherwise, and bitterly resented it.  That, more than money or safety, might have been what had led him to betray us all.

“Ed,” he said, when he opened the door.  He looked surprised to see us, but unafraid; he might well have jumped to the conclusion that I had arrived to beg him to join the new government.  He’d probably got a ‘reluctant acceptance’ speech plotted out already.  “What can I do for you?”

I suppose I should have handled it gently, but I was in a murderous mood.  “In,” I said, and pushed him into his hallway.  Mac followed and closed the door behind us.  Somehow, I was unsurprised to see evidence of good living everywhere.  “The game is up, traitor!”

Schneider paled.  “How did you know?”

I carefully didn’t smile.  If Schneider had tried to bluff it out, I would have found it hard to prove anything.  Hearsay isn’t really enough these days, nor should it be.  His confession, witnessed by myself and Mac, would be enough to convict him.

“The Warriors betrayed you and ratted you out,” I said, watching him carefully.  It was just possible that he didn’t know who he was working for, although I couldn’t imagine who
else
he could think he was working for.  Salem or another of the Principle Towns, perhaps?  “They were quite happy to abandon you when they decided they didn’t need you anymore.  Perhaps you thought they’d make you a priest, right?  They’ve dropped you in the shit and you’re not going to get out of it!”

He wilted.  I took him by the arm, dragged him into the sitting room, and thrust him into an armchair that looked as if it was a hundred years old.  I would quite happily have reduced it to firewood.  I wasn’t particularly impressed at all.  It was just a good thing that his wife wasn't around.  Chances were, she’d be unaware of his double life.  I wouldn’t have trusted her with such knowledge…

“All right, now listen to me,” I said, firmly.  “I can drag you out of here and put you on trial before the Town Meeting.  They’ll listen to me and learn what you have done to them.  When they’re finished, you’ll be lucky if you only get beaten to death by the crowd.  Do you want that to happen?”

“…No,” he said, finally.

“Good,” I said.  “Now, bearing in mind that I know most of the story already, tell me everything and I won’t hand you over to the mob.  If you lie to me once, the deal’s off and you’re going to die.  Talk.”

Schneider shook as he talked.  “You kept rejecting me,” he said.  “None of you would
listen
to me.  You always thought that you knew best and never listened to me and…”

“Enough with the excuses,” I said, angrily.  A man like Schneider would never blame himself for anything.  Never mind the fact he knew little of use, never mind the fact that he expected to be amply rewarded for his time and effort, never mind the fact that he didn’t have a good history with the town, he was incapable of realising why he was being punished.  Heinlein had once said that a man had to know why he was being punished before he was punished, but personally I was much less liberal.  A man’s guilty; punish him, if only to ensure that justice was done.  It’s not just about healing the guilty – something I tended to regard as impossible - but deterring further offenders in the future.  “Stick to the facts.  How did they make contact?”

“One of their representatives visited me after the Convention entered its third day,” Schneider said, slowly.  I sighed in relief.  At least the man hadn’t been a spy from Day One, even though that would have required pre-planning on a truly diabolical scale.  “He’d seen how the Convention rejected me and offered me a position in a new government instead, telling me that I would be the Priest of Ingalls and all would bow down before me.  He proved that he worked for the Prophet and told me that if I obeyed, I wouldn’t have to fear.”

I shuddered.  “And you believed him?”

“What other choice did I have?”  Schneider asked.  “Would you have believed me if I had brought it to you?”

“Maybe,” I said.  I would have believed him, wouldn’t?  Or perhaps he was right and I would have regarded it as merely Schneider trying to gain more status in the community.  It was just another road not taken.  “What did they want from you?”

“Everything,” Schneider said, bitterly.  Listening to him, it was all I could do not to jump on him and tear him apart.  “They wanted everything from the number of guns in the town to maps of the defences.  After the first contact, they demanded more and more and…I couldn’t stop giving it to them.  I used to go out hunting for stuff and make contact with their people.  Ed – Sheriff – I’m sorry.”

“Are you?”  I said, feeling cold chills running down my spine.  If the Warriors knew us that well…how long would it be before they attempted to crush us directly?  They couldn’t leave us here for long; we might change all of the defences, or even uncover one of their other spies.  “When were you meant to make the next contact with them?”

“In two days,” Schneider said.  “They wanted an update on the defences and on the teams you’d been deploying to slow their advance.”

I nodded.  That made a certain kind of sense.  The leaders of the Warriors weren't idiots, after all, and given the terrain in West Virginia, a small number of teams could slow their advance significantly.  Get in, land a heavy punch, and get out again.  A handful of IEDs in the right places could make them very – very – paranoid about advancing up perfectly safe roads, let alone the interstate.  A few cars pulled into a barrier would make them suspect the presence of ambushers…and, of course, the ever-present snipers.  They’d hopefully be shitting themselves as they advanced towards Ingalls, fearful of every broken twig and ruined house.  It was almost a pity that we’d done such a good job of clearing out the bandits.

My lips twitched wryly. 
No good deed goes unpunished
…

“Right,” I said, thoughtfully.  “This is what you are going to do for me.  You will take the plans I will provide you with to them and ensure that they believe that they’re the real plans.  You will take their instructions and return here, whereupon you will inform us at once of the nature of the instructions.  Do you understand?”

He nodded, slowly.  I believed that he would do his best to carry them out, if only because he was shit-scared of me, but it would be wise to offer the carrot along with the stick.  A man like Schneider needed constant threats to keep him afraid, or his natural self-centred nature would reassert itself and push him into doing something stupid, like attempting to get back at me by warning the Warriors.  It would be suicidal – the Warriors wouldn’t need him any longer – but somehow I doubt he was concerned about that.  He'd have his mind consumed with thoughts of revenge.  I had to offer him something he wanted desperately.

“If you succeed in this mission, and if you carry it out perfectly, I won't tell the people about your treason,” I offered.  “You won’t be able to run for political office, or try to gain wealth and power dishonestly, but at least you’ll have your life and your wife.  Try to betray me and believe me, you won’t last long enough to run to the Warriors.  Do you understand?”

I reached forward, grasped him by the collar, and pulled him upwards.  “Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” he said, shaking.  “I understand.  I’ll do as you say.  I won’t tell them anything.  I won’t…”

“Good,” I said, pushing menace into my voice.  Judging from the weakness in his legs, he was on the verge of fainting.  I wouldn’t have cared, but it would have been hard to explain.  “I’ll be watching you, Schneider.  Do not let me down.”