Wall: A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Adventure (The Traveler Book 3) (11 page)

Roof knew that was how the Cartel grew exponentially in a short period of time. He and the three other generals had insisted their most trusted soldiers go about proselytizing the masses. It was their own version of the Crusades.

It was brilliant, really. Heavy handed and brutal, but brilliant. Posses went from town to town, ranch to ranch, house to house, and converted the nonbelievers at gunpoint or worse.

When there was resistance, Roof made certain his lieutenants knew to make examples of those who failed to comply. It was not hyperbole when a posse boss threatened to put someone’s head on a stake or burn him alive. It led to a strong foothold in nearly every city and town within their territory.

For close to five years, ruling by fear had served the Cartel. Now, on the edge of war with those few who refused to succumb to their threats, who resisted with uncommon resolve, Roof thought better of it.

He looked at Porky—softhearted, roly-poly Porky—and saw the weakness in their numbers. How many other men about to fight for the Cartel were doing so because their only other options were exile or death? How many of them served out of fear as opposed to loyalty?

Porky, and the countless grunts like him, were conscripted soldiers. They were an entirely different proposition from the men and woman who would fight for the Dwellers because they chose to do so.

He knew from his days in Syria that a strongly held belief was more powerful than an HK. The fighters there, in their limitless number of factions, all fought for what they believed was right. They risked their lives and took those of their enemies based on the simple premise that they were doing so for a righteous cause.

It made them difficult to defeat, given that American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines were fighting because it was their job to do so. They weren’t in country because they were seeking a moral high ground. They weren’t purging the world of infidels. They were getting paid to be there. The esoteric idea of patriotism and democracy didn’t work the same way.

Skinner grunted and drew Porky’s attention. The captain was holding the bowl of ice, shaking it loudly.

Porky reached out his hand slowly, as if he were afraid of losing it. “You’re finished with it?”

Skinner nodded and shoved the bowl into Porky’s hands. The grunt took it and lowered his head, leaving the room like a dismissed manservant. Both men watched him leave and then locked eyes.

“I need you here, Cyrus,” Roof said. “I’ve got men staying here to hold down the fort, so to speak. Lubbock is critical to our trade with the Mexicans and with the users north of the wall. We can’t leave it entirely unprotected while we march on the canyon.”

Skinner’s face was frozen with disgust. Roof started to further make his case when Skinner snapped his fingers and pointed over the general’s shoulder, waving his finger at a desk on the far side of the room.

Roof turned around and saw a large notepad on the desk. He swung his leg over the chair and maneuvered his way to the desk. The pad was irregular and discolored from water stains, and most of the pages were already covered with illegible pre-Scourge notes.

Roof picked it up and showed it to Skinner. “You want this?”

Skinner nodded.

Roof walked around to the other side of the desk and fished through the unlocked drawers, looking for a pen. He found one, uncapped it, and scribbled on the paper until ink trailed onto it from the ballpoint.

He carried both back to Skinner and handed them over, standing over Skinner while he wrote on the crinkled paper and then ripped it free of the pad.

Roof took the note, held it close to his eyes and then pulled it back to focus. Skinner’s handwriting was hard to read. It resembled the left-hand offering of a right-handed kindergartner.

“You need me at the canyon. I don’t want to stay here with the losers and women.”

Roof looked up, still holding the note in his hand, and sighed. “You can’t put your tongue all the way in your mouth. You can’t talk. Your face is swollen like you stuck it in a hornet’s nest.”

Skinner scribbled another message and ripped it from the pad. Roof would’ve laughed at the comedy of it if he hadn’t been to blame.

“That’s why you can’t keep me here. I can’t be in charge. I’ll follow you to the canyon.”

Roof considered the argument. Skinner was right. He was probably more effective as a grunt than a leader given his injuries. The captain handed him a third message.

“I’m in the Cartel ’cause I want to be. Not ’cause I had to be.”

Roof nodded. “Fine, you’re a frontline grunt. Hope you’re happy.”

Roof was happy. He needed as many Skinners as he could get. Skinner had a cause.

He
wanted
to fight. It wasn’t about survival for him. It was about living.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

OCTOBER 25, 2037, 9:07 PM

SCOURGE +5 YEARS

PALO DURO CANYON, TEXAS

Paagal took a long, slow drink from a tall metal thermos. She moaned softly as she drank, tilting the bottom of the thermos higher and higher until she’d emptied its contents.

“Coffee is such a treat,” she said. “Are you certain I can’t offer you any?”

Lola shook her head. Battle sighed.

“I suppose I’m boring you,” said Paagal, one eyebrow arched higher than the other.

“You haven’t told us anything,” Battle said. “We’ve been here for I don’t know how long, and I have no more sense of your tactical plan than I did when you were preaching to the choir.”

Paagal eased into the chair across from her guests. They were sitting at the rough wooden table in her tent. She reached down and pulled a large map from beside her. It was rolled into a tube and she unwound it, placing it on the table.

Paagal spun the map around so the Texas Panhandle was on her side. There was a thick black line that circumnavigated the old state boundaries. Paagal ran her finger along the markings.

“This is the wall,” she said. “That should give you a decent idea of the territory. We are in this location.” She dragged her finger to the canyon, which was encircled in red.

Battle noticed there were numbers written by the names of most of the larger cities. Some of the numbers were crossed out and new numbers written beside them. He tapped the number 729 near Austin and 1050 at San Antonio.

“What are these?” he asked.

Paagal looked up from the map with a smile. “Those are the numbers of Dwellers we have in those locations.”

Lola pointed to the number 2512 above Houston. “So you have twenty-five hundred people in Houston who are sympathetic to your cause?”

“Twenty-five hundred and twelve,” said Paagal. “And they’re not sympathizers, Lola. They’re revolutionaries.”

Lola’s eyes darted from marking to marking on the map. “How?”

“We didn’t start with these numbers,” said Paagal. “We began two years ago with maybe five or ten in each city. Each of those people recruited those who they thought might fit our way of thinking. They in turn recruited more people. It organically grew exponentially from there.”

Battle waved his hand over the map. “And all of these revolutionaries are doing what right now?”

“For starters,” she said, “they’ve attacked the leadership in each location.”

“You said that at the bonfire,” said Lola.

“Yes,” Paagal said. “I did. But I didn’t say what comes next.”

Lola leaned in. “Which is…?”

“Half of the revolution takes place in the cities,” she said. “The element of surprise is a powerful force. Once we’ve degraded the Cartel enough that neutral actors see we can win, they’ll join our side.”

“What about the other half?” asked Battle.

“They advance,” said Paagal. She held her hands in front of her face and interlocked her fingers. “They squeeze the Cartel. If we hold them at bay long enough here at the canyon, we win. They’ll have nowhere to go. Retreat becomes an impossibility.”

“Not impossible.”

Paagal leaned back, her eyes widened and brow arched. “Oh?”

Battle ran his fingers along the map, indicating stress points for the Dwellers. He showed Paagal areas from which the Cartel could make them vulnerable. He traced escape routes for both the Dwellers and the Cartel.

Battle had lost so much of what he’d learned at West Point and on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Syria. The space in his memory reserved for military gamesmanship was fragmented. He’d made so many stupid mistakes since the Scourge, it was as if he’d never been a soldier. His survival to this point was as ridiculous as it was miraculous. It was the stuff of dime-store novels.

As he worked the map bathed in the red glow of Paagal’s tent, those disparate memories flooded back. It was as if he’d awoken from a long sleep and was lucid for the first time in a long time.

“Let’s assume they’ll be attacking from all points.” Battle ran his finger along the map, tracing the multitude of routes available to the advancing troops. “They’ll have men moving from these roads here and here.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Paagal said, running her finger along the map next to Battle’s. “They can’t access the floor from any of these points. They’ll have the high ground to provide cover fire and to occupy our people, but they’ll have to funnel their advance into these spots here. They’re the only ways down to the floor.”

Battle nodded. “So where do you want me?”

Lola nudged him with her shoulder. “You mean us. Where does she want us?”

Battle acquiesced. “Us.”

Paagal tapped a point on the map near the southern rim. “I think you’d be best utilized at the entrance here. That’s one of the funnel points. You’re good with a weapon. I’ll need you picking off combatants as they emerge from their descent.”

“Got it.”

Battle and Lola left Paagal in her tent, walking slowly back to their own shelters. Neither said anything at first until Battle broke the ice.

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” he asked, his voice dripping with suspicion. “It seems kinda strange.”

Lola looked up at Battle as they stepped in sync. “It was pretty chaotic,” she said. “Everybody was rushing over there. Sawyer didn’t want to be late. I checked in on you and you were asleep. I started to wake you, but Baadal tugged on my arm and told me to hurry up.”

“So you left me?”

“I did try to wake you up, actually,” she said. “I said your name loudly a couple of times. You rolled over. You were wheezing a little bit. I’m sorry, I should have gotten you up.”

“You should have. I agree.” Battle believed her. Still, he was skeptical of the Dwellers. “I don’t trust them.”

“You don’t trust anyone.”

“Not true,” Battle said. “Maybe it’s not that I don’t trust them. I don’t think their motives are as pure as they’d have us believe.”

“Get over it.” Lola laughed condescendingly. “Nobody’s motives are pure in this world. Everybody’s trying to survive by hook or by crook. For such a skeptic, it’s like you still want to believe in Santa Claus.”

Lola reached over and took Battle’s hand. He allowed it, welcomed it really, and squeezed gently once their fingers were fully intertwined. A jolt of electricity sparked through his body. His chest tightened. He looked over at Lola and smiled. She smiled back and then looked away demurely, as if embarrassed by their connection.

Battle was content to walk quietly, hand in hand, back to their tents. He thought about what Lola had said about motive.

She was right, of course. There was no Santa Claus. He’d died from the Scourge.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

OCTOBER 25, 2037, 9:42 PM

SCOURGE +5 YEARS

INTERSTATE 45, SOUTH OF BUFFALO, TEXAS

The headlights cut a narrow, bright path ahead along the cracked asphalt of the highway. Interstate 45, as it used to be known, was the direct north-south link between Houston and Dallas.

Ana planned to take the shortest path north before jogging west. She didn’t have time to avoid the highway in search of more desolate, less traveled paths. This was her best option.

She squinted as she drove, pretending as if she were piloting a rocket ship; the reflective white dashes separating the lanes were like stars speeding past. She imagined she were hurtling through space towards some distant planet, one without violence or disease or guilt.

Penny was awake in the seat next to her, content to suck on the pacifier. Ana knew it wouldn’t be long before the child would be hungry and she would have to stop to feed her.

Ana didn’t want to stop. She wanted to be at the canyon.

It was ice cold in the car. Without a windshield, the wake of air displaced by the car rushed through the cabin. Ana had found a blanket in the trunk that she’d wrapped around Penny, but she herself was cold. Her hands were especially uncomfortable.

She looked down at the speedometer and saw she was pushing the Lexus at forty miles per hour. Though there wasn’t much about cars she could recall, she did remember hearing once that the faster the car moved, the more fuel it consumed. She hoped that by driving fast enough to outpace anyone on horseback, she might save some fuel and arrive at the canyon without problem. It also reduced the wind swirling through the open cabin.

Driving through the darkness, she occasionally caught a gray glimpse of a building or abandoned vehicle along the side of the highway. She was thankful the journey to this point had been in the dark. Ana didn’t need the distraction of what the Scourge had wrought and what it had done to the world as she tried to free herself from what it had done to her and what she had done as a result.

It wasn’t as though Ana had lived a life of leisure before the pneumonia killed her mother, her grandfather, her sister, and the man to whom she was engaged. Every last one of them was a drunk or an addict who couldn’t find their way past the eighth step.

None of them had ever made amends. Even on their respective deathbeds, as the consumption took their breath and their lives, they refused to take responsibility for their actions or their interaction.

The Lexus cut through the dark and Ana was focused on that eighth step. She tried to recall all of the people she had wronged. She couldn’t get past the four people she’d killed that day: her child’s father, a resistance recruiter, and two foul people who she did not like but whom she’d rather not have murdered.