William Johnstone - The Doomsday Bunker

Pomeroy stopped, but his hands were still clenched into fists.

Larkin moved around him toward Greer and Ortega. Greer had moved into Charlotte Ruskin’s quarters in Corridor Two a while back. People’s personal lives were their own business. The security force didn’t care who slept with who as long as they were peaceful about it. But Greer’s relationship with Charlotte Ruskin probably had a lot to do with his dislike for Graham Moultrie and his frequent bitching about the things Moultrie and the project staff did.

Ever since Day One, the day of the nuclear war—that was how they measured time here in the Hercules Project; today was Day 247—Charlotte Ruskin had caused trouble. She hadn’t physically attacked anyone again, but she complained constantly about anything and everything. A few months in, she had started holding meetings in the Bullpen, meetings at which she had given loud, angry speeches about Moultrie’s leadership. Larkin hadn’t attended any of those gatherings, but he’d heard that she was comparing Moultrie to Hitler and his security force to the Gestapo. That appealed to people like Beth Huddleston, since playing the Hitler card had always been one of the Left’s go-to tactics in political arguments.

And despite Larkin’s hope that they were now beyond all that partisan bullshit—that the residents would understand they were in this together—almost right from the start it had been evident that wasn’t going to be the case. Factions had formed almost right away. “Democrat” and “Republican” might not mean much anymore, but now there were Bullpenners, Corridor People, and the Silo-ites—a name that Larkin hated with a passion. Varying degrees of Haves and Have-nots, although anybody who looked at the situation with a clear-eyed, practical bent could see right away that nobody down here “had” much more than anybody else.

Sure, the people who lived in the corridors and the silo apartments enjoyed a little more room and privacy than the ones in the Bullpen, but that had been everyone’s choice to make. Nobody was living in the damn lap of luxury, as Larkin had pointed out during more than one argument with Beth Huddleston, who had appointed herself the spokesperson for and guardian of the so-called downtrodden—not that she was just about to give up anything of her own in order to “share their pain.”

Charlotte Ruskin, fueled by grief over her husband’s death and her hatred for Graham Moultrie, used that festering discontent to stir up trouble. Larkin knew it, Moultrie knew it, and so did everybody else on the security force, but, per Moultrie’s orders, there wasn’t much they could do about it. This tiny outpost was still America, after all, and people had rights.

But when they started throwing punches… then Larkin could step in and do what was necessary to keep the peace.

Which was what he did now as he moved toward Greer and Ortega. He had gotten close when Greer hooked a left into Ortega’s stomach that doubled him over, then followed with a right uppercut that sent Ortega flying backward. Larkin braced himself and caught the man.

Ortega hung loosely in Larkin’s grip, only semiconscious. Greer bored in with his fists cocked, evidently so caught up in the heat of battle he didn’t notice who had hold of Ortega.

“Hang on to him!” he cried. “I’ll teach the bastard a lesson he’ll never forget!”

“Damn it!” Larkin turned and pushed Ortega into the waiting arms of the crowd, several of whom grabbed him and kept him from falling. He put his hand out in a warding-off gesture, as he had with Pomeroy. “Back off, Greer!”

The man’s chest rammed hard against Larkin’s hand, but Larkin was bigger and had set his feet. Greer grunted from the contact and fell back a step.

“Larkin!” A scowl twisted Greer’s face. “Come to strut around in your red shirt and give orders?”

Larkin started to say something about how it was a vest, not a shirt, then stopped as he realized how pointless that was. He kept his hand up and said, “I don’t know what this is about—”

“He called Charlotte a bitch!”

Maybe if she wouldn’t act like one… The thought started to form in Larkin’s mind, but he shook it away. “That’s no excuse for going after a guy.”

“Isn’t it? What would you do if somebody called your wife a bitch, Larkin?”

Larkin knew good and well what he would feel like doing in that case. Whether or not he gave in to the urge would depend on other factors, he supposed. He liked to think he could control himself, but if he was being honest, he didn’t know if that would always be the case.

“Look, if you and Ortega don’t get along, just stay away from each other.”

“Yeah, that’s easier said than done. You can’t exactly go for much of a walk down here, man.”

Greer revolved his hand to take in their surroundings. He had a point there, too. This underground chamber seemed vast, but when you were stuck down here all the time, it shrunk in a hurry. People could walk around the Bullpen and then go upstairs and walk the full length of both corridors in less than fifteen minutes. It didn’t take long to start feeling like the concrete walls were closing in.

“You’re gonna have to find some other way to deal with your problems, Greer,” Larkin said. “You can’t just start whaling away on people.”

A man in the crowd yelled, “Yeah, if you do that, the Redshirts will drag you away to jail, Jeff!”

Larkin looked around, unsure who had said that. His jaw tightened. “Nobody’s getting dragged to jail—”

“Damn right,” Holdstock said from behind him, “because there’s only one of you. Where are the rest of your fascist buddies, Larkin?”

Fascist. There it was again. Larkin hadn’t been born until World War II was over, but he was old enough to have known men who had fought in it. One of his uncles had been in the 1st Infantry Division, the Big Red One. Another had been on the Lexington at the Battle of the Coral Sea and had survived by the skin of his teeth when the carrier went down. A guy like Holdstock could start an argument in an empty room, so he was viewed mostly as a hothead. A lot of muttering came from the crowd. Larkin could tell that some supported Greer and Holdstock while others were on the side of Pomeroy and Ortega. It wouldn’t take much for this to go from a fight to a full-scale riot. He didn’t want that.

“Look,” he said. “Why don’t all of you just move on—”

“What’s going on here?” a shrill voice demanded. Charlotte Ruskin came through the crowd, pushing people aside. She stopped in front of Larkin, put her hands on her hips, and glared at him. “What are you doing, Larkin? Carrying out Moultrie’s illegal orders to harass my friends?”

“My only orders are to keep the peace,” Larkin said as he struggled to keep a tight rein on his temper.

That wasn’t easy where Charlotte Ruskin was concerned. She was like fingernails on a blackboard. She was around forty, with dark red hair and the sort of looks that used to make people use the phrase “a handsome woman.” Not beautiful by any means, but she could be compelling, at least when she wasn’t screeching like a harpy.

Now she snorted contemptuously at Larkin’s declaration about keeping the peace. “Funny how Moultrie’s idea of peace is beating people up and putting them behind bars.”

In point of fact, there were several small chambers adjacent to the Command Center where people could be detained, but they were hardly jail cells and there were no bars, just doors. Those confinement rooms were seldom used. Mostly they served as a place where somebody could sleep it off if they got drunk and started causing trouble. Liquor was supposedly controlled—Moultrie had learned quickly that people under as much stress as they were in the Hercules Project didn’t need unlimited access to alcohol—but some of them found a way to get their hands on booze anyway. It was an age-old story, Larkin supposed.