old wooden desk chair out, and I sat cautiously at the table across from Jim. Debra, sitting on my right, reached over and squeezed my hand. I tried not to grimace at the pain caused by that simple act.
“You shouldn’t be up.” It was a gentle admonishment and, though I could tell she meant it, she also seemed relieved to see me.
“I’m fine,” I lied.
“Seriously, how’re you feelin’, Lee?” Jim’s smile and light tone were forced, his expression grim. The black eye made it look worse.
“Like I dove off the high dive into an empty pool.” The smile relaxed a little, as did his expression. “So what’s all the arguing about?”
The mayor hesitated, apparently loathe to renew the debate.
“Come on, Jim. You look like you just swallowed something that’s trying to claw its way back up. What’s going on?”
I searched the faces of the three people I trusted above all others. If there was something they were keeping from me, it must be pretty bad. I sighed and looked up at the sunlight filtering in through the office window. From the angle, I estimated the time to be about an hour or two before noon.
Turning back to the three around the table, I saw that Ken had on his best poker face. I’d seen it before and knew I wouldn’t get anything there that he didn’t want to show me. Jim was just the opposite with his face a tortured roadmap of emotion. Above all else, I saw the worry of a man responsible for the fate of an entire town resting on his shoulders. Though the two men’s expressions were as opposite as east and west, the results were the same. I could tell nothing about the situation at hand.
I concentrated my gaze on Debra. We had been married for almost twenty years and knew each other better than we knew anyone else. It was hard for us to hide anything from one another. So when I saw the tightness of her lips, I knew she was fighting back her anger. She seldom raised her voice unless she was really riled, so that wasn’t unexpected, but her eyes bothered me-just a little wider than usual, a little brighter with moisture. I had seen the expression all too often during our internment in the shelter-fear.
“What is it that’s got you three at each other’s throats?” I prodded. None of them would meet my eyes, their gazes darting to one another like school children caught at some clandestine activity, none wanting to be the first to confess. “Jim?”
James Kelland, Mayor of Rejas City, the man most looked up to by all of its citizenry, shifted nervously in his seat and studiously avoided my gaze. He turned to Ken as though he wanted the other man to start.
I followed Jim’s cue. “Ken?” But Ken also seemed reluctant to take the reins.
I sighed wearily, too tired to properly express my frustration. “Look, guys, I’ve known you two for a couple of years now, and I’ve never known either of you to mince words, so I can imagine just how bad this probably is. Right now, though, I’m tired, my head is killing me, my whole body aches, and the only thing you two are doing by passing the buck back and forth is making me even more nervous. I can’t take too much of this crap right now, so could you please just spit it out?”
It was the mayor that finally started. “Larry’s outside.”
Those two simple words froze the blood in my veins.
“Outside where?”
“Out front. He’s got two of his tanks on the road outside the factory. One of ’em’s on the bridge with its cannon pointin’ right at us. The other one’s back behind the tree line.”
“He’s got hostages.” Debra’s voice dropped to nearly a whisper, and she wouldn’t meet my gaze, choosing instead to examine the grain of the tabletop as if it were the only thing she could bear to look at. As I watched, a tear fell from her cheek to dampen the wood. Here then was the heart of the matter.
I looked back at Ken. “I thought we got them all out. What happened?”
“Eric’s group didn’t do as well as ours. They ran into some complications with the hospital extraction.” Extraction? Was that what it had been? Such a fine, sterile word for such a bloody operation. My thoughts were understandably bitter. “Some of the hospital patients were injured too badly to move, and some of the doctors and nurses refused to leave them. They got as many out as they could, but ended up leaving nearly a hundred behind.”
“A hundred hostages?” I groaned.
Ken shook his head. “There’s more. Or I should say, there’s less.”
I shook my head irritably. “No more games! What else?”
He pursed his lips. “When he showed up here yesterday-”
“Whoa!” I interrupted. “Yesterday? He was here when we were in town?”
Ken shook his head. “That was the day before yesterday. You’ve been out for the last day and a half.”
“What?”
Debra nodded confirmation. “You were pretty banged up when they brought you in. When you didn’t wake up all day, we figured the best thing for you was to let your body rest and heal itself.”
“I slept a whole day?”
Ken nodded, too. “And half of today.” He pointed to Debra. “Your lady here threatened anyone who got within fifty feet of you with the violent removal of precious body parts.”
I thought back on the bits and pieces I could recall of the ride back in the Humvee. It had been light enough to see Rene and Sarah-early morning. When I’d seen the light in the window a moment ago, I’d assumed that it was nearly noon of the same day.
I could tell by Ken’s expression that he had more to tell me. So I shoved my confusion aside and waited patiently for him to continue.
“When Larry showed up yesterday, he parked his tank just across the bridge and sent out a messenger with a white flag. The messenger claimed Larry was a lawful representative of the United States Army, and that you were wanted for war crimes.”
“What!”
Ken held up a finger. “Just wait. It gets better.”
“Jim told him you’d been killed in the fighting, and that even if you weren’t, in consideration of the damage he’d done the town so far, the good general was going to have to give us more than just his word that he was a legitimate government official before we would even consider turning someone over to him.”
I smiled despite the circumstances. “How’d Larry take that?”
“Not well.” Jim took over from Ken. “I watched that man take my message back to Larry. As soon as he finished talkin’, Larry pulled out a pistol and shot the man where he stood.” He shook his head. “I ain’t never seen nothin’ like it. His own man! Just dropped him ’cause he didn’t like what he had to say.
“Then he climbed back in his tank, and him an’ the rest of his boys just left like nothin’ happened. This mornin’, he came back with thirty hostages from the hospital. Turned ten of them loose and sent ‘em in with hundreds of leaflets.” The mayor slid a piece of mimeographed paper across the table. “Read.”
It was the same mimeograph paper as that on which the
I had no idea what to say. So many implications were buried in the note that it was overwhelming. “He’s
