I cut to the chase. “If you know about the Severins and the Gammas, then you must know about the secret ARK research facility in the Juniper. Hoyt has the cure to the Sterility Epidemic, but you knew that too.”
He poured himself a glass of Pellegrino, some kind of fancy bubbly from Italy. Quite a sip of water for a Texan. “I’m not going to say much more, Cavatica Weller. From what I know of you, you aren’t going to shoot me, and while I’m an old man, I want to keep on breathing. I have a great-grandchild coming, and I’d like to hold her in my arms just once. You’re young. You don’t know what that means.”
“Three of my baby sisters died, living in the Juniper, in a place you created. The infant mortality rate in the Juniper is the worst in the world. But you don’t care. Did you get a cramp in your hand signing the Masterson-Wayne Act?”
He leaned forward. “What was my other option? How could we possibly govern a place where we couldn’t communicate? Goddamn, if you’ll excuse me cursing, even telegraphs didn’t work. We’d have had to have the goddamn Pony Express, and no, it was a tough call, but look at the U.S. now? Peace and prosperity, flying cars and a cure for cancer, less than two percent unemployment, and the smallest standing army since Garfield. You want to judge me, Cavatica? That’s fine. But I’ve covered this with women smarter than you’ll ever be. Though never one that actually hit me. I’ll give you props for that.”
I opened my mouth to lay into him, but then I realized what he was doing, stalling for time. And though I’d hit him twice, he didn’t think I’d hit him again.
I drew a Colt Terminator and worked the action. A bullet sprang out and clattered across the floor. But I had fresh one in the chamber.
Talking fast, I let him know what kind of girl he was dealing with. “I cut the leg off my sister. I murdered a woman begging for mercy. I’ve sold my soul to Satan more times than I could count. I’ve been buried alive, and I’ve dove into rivers of ice, and flown through the air on wings more desperate than Icarus’s. You really don’t think I’d put a hole in you, old man, to get what I need?”
President Jack sighed and looked away. First time he seemed defeated in our little encounter. “You say you sold your soul to the Devil? You ain’t never met Tibbs Hoyt then, ’cause they’re one and the same. If I tell you anything, he’ll kill me, my family, even my unborn granddaughter. You don’t know him.”
“But I do,” I growled. I was going to have to shoot him. I was going to have to shoot him in the leg and then stand on the wound until he told me.
Aunt Bea. Dead.
Nikki Breeze. Dead.
Kasey and Allie. Dead.
And more dying below, while we stood there chatting.
The zeppelin popped treacherously and cracked, caught between the Heartbreaker and the Cargador underneath. My time was running out.
I looked down at the old man, and I didn’t see a person. I saw a chore, and Mama raised us to do our worst chores first.
He wasn’t speaking. So I spoke more. “I met Hoyt, and he didn’t take me serious. Maybe it’s ’cause I’m young, or a girl, or maybe he’s too far gone. Hubris, you know? Bellerophon on the wings of Pegasus.”
“Glad those goddamn liberal schools still teach Greek mythology,” he muttered.
“You ready to die, Jack? ’Cause I’m ready to kill you to get what I want.” I looked down into his eyes, and I summoned every bit of shakti I had and channeled it into my blazing eyes above the dark hole of my pistol.
A slow smile spread across President Jack’s face and it was full of teeth and sass.
I lowered the barrel to blow a hole in his kneecap. My finger tightened on the trigger.
“Tibbs is a fool not to take you and your family seriously,” the old guy said. “You’re a goddamn myth, girl. You are a righteous angel in cowboy boots. Excuse, cowgirl boots. Old habits. Anyway, you’re a goddess of vengeance.” He paused and got down to it. “Blackpoole Medical had a research facility inside Yellowstone National Park. Why do you think the Chinese nuked it? They got some really good intel, got codes to our missile defense systems, and they ran model after model. I drank Bud Light with the Chinese Premiere, Pei-Yu Chiou, and we talked, really talked. Helluva guy. Big Clint Eastwood fan and even spent some years eating Houston shrimp. I asked him if he thought hitting Yellowstone would blow up the world, and he said he wouldn’t have done it if they hadn’t been so desperate to stop our very illegal biological warfare department. Of course, this is all off the record. But who’s going to believe you?”
“Yellowstone,” I whispered. That explained Micaiah mountain biking on the lava fields, and it explained why the ARK didn’t want to bring electricity back to the Juniper.
The secret ARK research facility was in Yellowstone, where the Blackpoole Medical labs had been. I connected the dots. “The Sterility Epidemic. The virus. We made it. Blackpoole Medical made it, the Chinese nuked it, and the virus survived.”
He didn’t confirm nor deny my thoughts, but I knew I was right by the long look he gave me. If asked, he’d have plausible deniability. So, he returned to his memories. “Pei-Yu Chiou loved Bud Light. I was always partial to Coors. Mountain spring water and all that. I must say, Coors never tasted the same once they moved their operations out of Golden after the Knockout.”
I lowered my pistol into my holster, my mind still spinning. It was all connected. Nuking Yellowstone to
