When the gates finally opened, Lieutenant Colonel Jackson was standing directly in the middle of the entrance with his hands on his hips. The colonel was a shorter man but stocky, with a very practiced thousand-yard stare. He was flanked on both sides by two soldiers. He barely had a dozen men at his disposal, but he had managed to keep his facility secure throughout the EMP strike.
“That better not be my man on the back of that horse,” Jackson said.
Ben made sure to choose his next words carefully. “We need to talk.”
Jackson’s eye twitched, and he had a holstered pistol at his hip. “Who are your friends?”
“Sergeant Ken Tanner, sir,” he answered. “My men and I were tasked to seek you out and provide you with information directly from General McGuire.” The sergeant looked at Ben. “He says he has information to tell you, too.”
Jackson took a deep breath. “All right then. I’ll speak to you one at a time. Sergeant, you’re up first. And will someone please get Beckett off the back of that horse!”
Jackson and the sergeant departed into one of the buildings while Ben was forced to wait outside. He watched as two other soldiers removed Beckett’s body from the horse. They gently laid him on the ground, unsure of what to do with him.
“I’m sorry about your friend,” Ben said.
“Beckett wasn’t just my friend,” the soldier said. “He was my brother.” He adjusted his grip on the AR-15, keeping that cold, hard stare on Ben.
Ben nodded and decided that keeping quiet was the best possible scenario for him to keep all of his teeth. But the silence that followed was almost as uncomfortable as the restraints, and Ben grew uneasy as the soldier refused to take his eye off of him.
“Did you kill him?” the soldier finally asked.
“No,” Ben answered.
The soldier shifted his weight from one leg to another. “It would take balls to come back here with his body if you did. Or you might be some kind of a spy.”
“I don’t have the constitution to be a spy,” Ben said.
The soldier grinned, but it was barely noticeable through the scowl. Still, Ben took it as a good sign.
“How many friends have you lost?” Ben asked.
The soldier kept his eyes on the ground shook his head. “Too many. And I know we are going to lose more before all this is over.” The soldier looked to Ben. “Have you lost any?”
Ben thought back to the friends who followed him from the fire station. He thought of Jeff and Ali and Ted. If it weren’t for Ben, then all of those people would still be alive.
“I have,” Ben answered. “But I hope that in the end, I save more people than I lose.”
Ben grew anxious the longer he waited outside, and when he was finally pulled inside to speak with Jackson, he was drenched with sweat from baking in the sun.
“Talk,” Jackson said. “And make it quick.”
Ben felt every eye in the room on him. These men were Beckett’s comrades, and with this small of a unit, people were bound to have gotten close.
“We were ambushed on our way to the ranch where the radio was located,” Ben said. “It was sniper fire that killed him and three of my people. The radio we were using to listen to the enemy’s correspondence was destroyed, and the ranch was burned to the ground.”
Jackson was silent, still gripping the pistol at his side, his body language tense. “And you expect me to just take your word for that?”
“If I was responsible for Beckett’s death it would have made more sense for me to avoid coming back here,” Ben answered.
“And why did you come?” Jackson asked.
“I came because I still need your help,” Ben said. “And you need mine.”
Jackson laughed. “I need your help? All you’ve done for me so far is have one of my men killed.”
“There was something else I didn’t tell you before,” Ben said.
Jackson raised one eyebrow. “I don’t think now is the time to admit that you’re a liar, Ben.”
“It was more of an omission,” Ben replied. “The day of the EMP attacks, I captured one of the enemy combatants. He was wounded by one of my people, but I spoke to him before I returned here.” Ben took a breath. “This organization, The New Order, the EMP isn’t the only weapon of mass destruction they’re building.”
“You’re telling me that these people are trying to build a bomb?” Jackson asked.
“Yes,” Ben answered.
“And how did this captured enemy know this information?” Jackson asked. “What rank is he?”
“What does it matter what rank he is? They’re building a nuke!” Ben answered.
Jackson clenched his jaw. “He could just be feeding you a line to save his own skin.”
“Do you know what an EMP device does?” Ben asked.
“I think we all know what it does now,” Jackson answered.
“All right, well, a side effect of a nuclear bomb is an EMP,” Ben replied.
“You’re telling me they’ve already nuked the country somewhere?” Jackson asked.
“I’m saying that if these people managed to build and detonate an EMP device strong enough to wipe out the entire country’s grid, then it’s not insane to think they would be able to add a nuclear component to their next bomb.”
Jackson stiffened, and Ben saw the colonel’s wheels turning behind that stoic gaze.
“The prisoner back at my camp told me his people had dug up an old missile silo in the mountains outside of Charlotte,” Ben said. “They’re using those old parts to build a new bomb.”
“And this prisoner at your camp knows where we can find these components for the bomb?” Jackson asked.
“Yes,” Ben answered.
It wasn’t necessarily a lie because the truth was Ben didn’t know if Abe knew the location of the other components. But if it would get Jackson to believe him, then it was worth a shot.
“I’m not
