Divided States, page 25
Boudreaux’s breathing intensifies. “Okay, so you’re out by the railroad tracks where nobody can see you.”
“I was suspicious on the drive that he never mentioned anything other than having a good time, but I figured his interrogation technique could just be different than I’d expected. After a few minutes down there I stopped and broke character, asked why he wasn’t interrogating me yet.”
“And that’s when he realized you were Colonel Young’s daughter.”
“I don’t think he got that far. He knew I wasn’t a hooker, maybe even that I was an undercover detective. Either way, he knew he was in deep trouble. Dennis’s first reaction was to slap me, so I bent him the wrong way and got out of the truck. I didn’t make it to the clearing, though.”
“How’d you get the better of him?”
“He was preoccupied with getting in trouble, I guess. And I was still good enough to beat a lot of men in a fight. After rolling around for a few seconds, I kicked him off and made it to the tracks. He tackled me again, but my hand found the spike. I hit him in the temple, but that just dazed him. Dennis was on his knees trying to get up when I stabbed him with it.”
“Good girl.”
“Maybe if I’d stopped there. But the spike wasn’t in deep enough. I’d knocked him to the ground, but he started pulling it out.”
Lori pauses, hopes Boudreaux will tell her to stop.
He doesn’t.
“I straddled him and knocked away his hands,” she says, queasy. “Then I used my palms to push in the spike as far as my hundred pounds could manage. When he stopped fighting, I pulled it out and started beating his face with it. That’s when the Colonel pulled me off and jabbed his thumb in.”
Lori stops, listening to the replay. But this time she’s also feeling the steel slide into his flesh.
Disgusting.
Satisfying.
“The Colonel told me his keys were in the truck,” she says. “He didn’t say it, but I knew Dennis was dead before I put it in gear.”
They both know the rest of the story. Boudreaux and her father buried Dennis that night. Three days later, the Fayetteville and Charlottesville papers posted an article about two Fort Bragg soldiers missing within two months. Local TV picked up the story the following morning. By the evening news, all the media had a statement from the Army. They were working with local law enforcement to find the missing men.
Internally, the Colonel’s story that he had the first operator on a solo deployment was falling apart. So, rather than lie again, her father came clean.
Except he didn’t know how to tell a straight story, so he said Gloria Young really had been hooking. As far as the Army is concerned, she and her imaginary pimp had killed the men, and Col. Wyatt Young’s sin was covering up for his daughter.
What officer wouldn’t do the same?
Bragg Media Relations could manage local managing editors. But a leak could produce a sensational headline and stories describing sex and illegal activity by an officer’s underage daughter. That would attract major international media, who would dig into the nature of their service. The Washington Post had already run a brief, and that was without knowing the missing soldiers were less than six degrees from POTUS.
The Army couldn’t risk the media exposing the Unit and its command, so they planted leaks. All reporting revolved around a love triangle between two soldiers who worked in the same non-combat unit on base and a woman who’s wanted by CID. Nobody’s identity was revealed, and the news cycle moved on.
When the Colonel was discharged, they moved into a house her father inherited from his folks. When a homicide detective from North Carolina called to say Misty Young had been found dead of an overdose in a homeless camp, the Colonel inherited some money from her parents that had been tied up with her status as a missing person.
The money didn’t last long, not even with a second mortgage on the house, and he had to list an OTH discharge on employment applications. The Colonel wouldn’t take a service industry job, and he refused to quit the expensive booze and Cubans.
With no path forward, he finally fired the bullet with his name on it.
Lori’s body starts shaking and Boudreaux wraps his arms around her. But she’s not cold. She’s sick and anxious, so he releases her. He stays beside her, though, making sure their legs remain in contact through denim and polycotton.
She clenches her teeth to regain control of her nerves. “Neither of them deserved it. Not even Dennis. He was human garbage, but what he did doesn’t even meet the Old Testament, eye-for-an-eye threshold for the death penalty.”
“I don’t know about that.” Boudreaux sounds confident, as though he’s given this topic some thought. “If that’s your criteria, neither do the guys who swing outside of Republic prisons for kiddie porn. The way I see it, anyone who disagrees with that ought to be put on a list.”
Lori doesn’t know if Boudreaux’s right. And as someone who deserves the noose herself, she’s as far from the Judgment Seat as a person can get. “Let’s hope I never draw you for jury duty.”
She laughs, but it’s not reciprocated. Lori’s used to chasing her dark secrets around, but Boudreaux must not be the type to ever let his peek out of their compartment.
“I did so much for him.” His voice is a lonesome, mournful mix of syllables. “I knew he had a bad side, but I thought the good we did in our official capacity far outweighed my off-the-books work. But if I’d known all this, I’d’ve left and never looked back.”
“He was a master manipulator. It’s understandable for you to help him bury the bodies. Disappearing people is SOP for Delta operators, right? And choosing you must’ve made sense when you figured out I’d killed them.”
Boudreaux’s leg trembles as he scoots away. “Maybe if that’s all I’d done.”
What other terrible things had Boudreaux done for her father? Lori doubts he’s talking about something that happened on a deployment. Is he guilty about ops that went bad, or ones that bordered on assassination? Probably. But he’d have no reason to bring any of those up now.
It’s about her.
Lori wants to know, but she can’t ask the question. Her brand of self-harm is numbing pain, not causing it.
“What do you remember about your mother’s disappearance?”
“For starters, it wasn’t a disappearance.” Lori doesn’t know where this is going, but she doesn’t like it. “She stopped taking her medicine and left. The doctors said it’s common.”
“The doctors talked to you about your mom?”
No. They talked to the Colonel, who relayed the info to Lori. The picture’s coming into focus. “Are you telling me my father kicked my mentally ill mother out of our house?”
“Not exactly. Your dad told me she stopped taking her antipsychotics and wanted to move back home to be with her parents. Problem was—”
“They’d already passed. The doctors … my father … told me that’s why Mom stopped taking her meds.”
“I got the same story. He told your mom he’d give her time and money to go get the house fixed up so they could have a vacation home, but only if she went back on her medicine. She either did or was lucid enough to fool him for a bit, then took off.”
That’s one of the most human stories Lori’s ever heard about the Colonel. But why is Boudreaux the one telling it?
“This is the part you’re not going to like,” he says. “After three days of radio silence, he tasked me with tracking her down. I found her shot up with heroin in Oklahoma. She was pretty incoherent, but I gathered she was trying to reconnect with her ancestors.”
Boudreaux even knows her heritage. A man Lori met less than a day ago knows more about her than the man in the next room who shared her life for years, and she’s having trouble reckoning with the cognitive dissonance.
Then it hits her.
Her mother only left once.
“If you found her, why didn’t she ever come home again?”
“I extracted her and delivered her to Colonel Young. He said your mother couldn’t move back in until she agreed to get straight.”
There’s the prick I knew. “And you helped him.”
“He told me to keep an eye on her and—”
Boudreaux keeps talking, but Lori uses her newfound ability to focus and thinks instead about the last time she saw her mother.
It had been a good day. The sun was bright after days of rain, and gone were Mom’s ramblings about her past life, of the voices telling her to drive to her homeland. That morning, a Sunday, she made breakfast. Fluffy pancakes with her special blend of vanilla and nutmeg. Thick bacon, homemade hash browns, eggs cooked to order. Lori could only stomach scrambled, but her mother always asked, as though one day her daughter might wake up a different person.
While Lori and her father went to church, her mother stayed behind and made the house. The Colonel and the rest of the community were okay with her not attending. She’d had a few outbursts during services. During the last one, she started speaking in tongues, though Lori later heard some of the words during a museum exhibit on the early Native American tribes of the great Plains. Her mother had been speaking Comanche.
When they returned home, the Colonel helped Lori’s mother pack the car. She was only supposed to be gone for a week, and there was no shortage of underlings to serve as Lori and her father’s chauffeur.
Her mother hugged Lori last. I’m going to be fine, she said. You’ll see. Then, after the Colonel was nearly to the house, her mother said one last thing.
Sometimes you have to listen, baby girl. When the time comes, listen.
* * *
Lori’s had enough. She’s dry and jonesing and just found out a man she’d been trusting with her life is the biggest liar of them all. As she bolts upright, Lori’s legs threaten to give out. But she holds it together long enough to mule-kick the door.
“Get me out.” She’s screaming, mimicking the volume and tone from that night beside the railroad tracks. It’s the only time she’s been loud enough to be heard over the banging of her feet on the door. “I’m getting sick in here. Somebody open this door now.”
Boudreaux’s still talking. She’s back to recording his pathetic excuses, and maybe she’ll listen later. But right now, there’s nothing he can say that’ll make up for what he did. If he would’ve helped Lori’s mom get right, the Colonel would never have taken his sick games as far as he did. Lori wouldn’t be a murderer. She wouldn’t know the joy that comes with taking a life that deserves to be taken, or the guilt that comes with prematurely snuffing one out.
Boudreaux’s not trying to stop her. He’s still jabbering on about trying to be a good guy and wishing he’d realized how dangerous her father was. As he raises his voice, Lori switches to kicking with her left leg and her screams bleed into belligerent nonsense. Her legs are about to give when she hears a key in the lock. Lori squeezes her eyes shut to protect herself from the unforgiving halogen waiting outside.
“What’n the hell’s going on in here?” the guard asks. He’s the youngest one who entered earlier to get the bucket.
She turns toward the light and opens her mouth, expecting words to come out.
Instead, she vomits, and by the sound of the guard’s cursing, he was caught in the crossfire.
“Goddammit lady, you could’ve warned me.”
“Please help me,” she says, eyes still closed. “I need medicine.”
“What kind of medicine does she need?” the guard asks Boudreaux, as though she’s incapable of knowing what drugs will get her right.
She opens her eyes. The guard is looking over his shoulder at Taggart.
“Based on what I’ve read, she needs pain pills. Two Oxy ought to do it.”
“For my leg,” she says, the lie popping out reflexively. “I was shot earlier today in New Orleans.”
Her eyes are adjusting, and she can see that the kid isn’t really a kid. He’s about her age, though the sandy beard’s never going to grow in like the SF guys he’s trying to emulate.
“All right, Dust Devil,” Taggart says, leaning in. “Y’all smell terrible. Get cleaned up and give her a fix.” He probes her with his brown eyes. “You’re lucky I need you alive and cooperative.”
Dusty leads her past the nurse’s station and toward the patient rooms. “I’ll take you to one of the empty rooms so you can wash yourself off. Then we’ll get the pills.”
The door to Room 5 is open, and she sees Ramirez lying in the bed. He looks peaceful enough and the heart monitor sounds steady.
“He going to be okay?” she asks.
“Don’t know. I heard the doc say something about a coma and needing blood. Not that it matters.”
She gets to live and a hero like Ramirez has been slated for death. “Doesn’t seem fair.”
“Hey, stuff’s rough all over. Not up to me who lives and who dies.”
Just following orders. Dusty strikes her as a good soldier, one who got in to do good and looks up to those who’ve been in longer than him.
“What branch were you with?” she asks.
“Army Rangers.”
“Seventy-fifth?”
He lowers his head and comes to a stop beside a door. “Well, I was Ranger qualified. When Oklahoma seceded, I decided I’d rather come back and serve in the Guard.” He opens the door. “Ladies first.”
The room’s clean and appears to have a large bathroom. Lori immediately starts devising plans that involve sex. But is that necessary? They need her alive, and Taggart has already decided to let her get clean and high.
She wants to try a different approach this time.
“Sounds like you really wanted to serve in a Ranger battalion,” she says before disappearing into the bathroom, which does have a full shower with a detachable head. “You want to be Special Forces, too?”
“Oh, yes ma’am. Since I’s a kid.”
She walks back out into the room. “You can wash off your boots and pantlegs in here. I’ll need a set of scrubs. I’ll be back in—”
“Can’t do it.” He’s not being mean about it, just matter-of-fact.
“Got to respect me for trying, though.”
Dusty cracks a smile.
Rapport.
“You ever hang out with a guy in Delta?”
“Would I know if I had?”
He’s quick. If he weren’t holding a lot of innocent people hostage as part of a plot to blow up modern society, she might like the guy.
“The guy I was in the closet with was in the Unit.” She steps closer. “And my father ran it. Back in the day, of course.”
Dusty’s reaction confirms it. He’s a military starfucker. And if she’s lucky, so are the rest of them.
50
ERIC
Even Boudreaux is broken now. It only takes one of them to escort the grizzly from one cage to another. The only difficulty lies in which seat he’ll take. He takes one beside Eric, which puts them both opposite Hansen and MacLaughlin, who’s back at the table but soaked and coughing.
Eric and Boudreaux are catty-corner from Moore and Reynolds. Lori’s still somewhere in the bowels of the hospital, but based on her outburst, she’s not handling the situation any better than the rest of them.
“Y’all’re the saddest sacks I’ve ever seen,” Taggart says. “Makes sense, though. All but one of you”—he tilts his head toward Eric—“used to be badasses. But now here you are, fixing to get taken out by a couple of regular Joes.”
Eric wishes Taggart were wrong. But everyone at the table knows what it’s like to set up and take out high-level targets—say, the people who are about to blow up an entire town and an eighth of the continent’s oil reserves. But they can’t seem to defeat this joker and his band of morons, who are acting at the behest of someone who named himself after Colonel Klinger.
But with only two guards in the room, now would be the perfect time. Boudreaux may look like he’s been hit with a tranquilizer, But Moore doesn’t seem worse for wear. Add in Jeremiah, who was DEVGRU, and Hansen’s Special Forces skills, and even with their hands zip-tied behind their backs, those three could lead a successful charge against Taggart and the guard he keeps calling Prickly Pear.
And surely there’s something sharp enough in the unguarded closet across the hall to cut through the flex-cuffs.
Eric may not have what it takes to neutralize the guards. But getting others to do what he wants is Eric’s specialty.
“What do you mean when you say regular Joes, sergeant?” he asks.
“I mean us grunts, you goddamn spook.”
Eric snorts. Nobody’s ever called Eric a spook. Not in real life, anyway. They do it in movies and books, but that’s always made him laugh. “You’ve never worked with intelligence officers, have you?”
“Hell no. Spies and all them covert military operations are the reason the country’s in such bad shape right now.” He scans the table. “I understand giving Title 50 authority to spies in the cold war, and I appreciate those men who helped us kick all that commie ass.”
That’s not how it worked, but Taggart must be referring to the fact that CIA and other officers in the former United States intelligence community were authorized to conduct covert operations. Which means Taggart’s about to move on to the military, which are Title 10 operations.
