David Koepp - Cold Storage

“Being ready.”

“For what, sir?”

“For when the day comes.”

The cop stared at him for a long moment. He gave no reason for Roberto to feel encouraged, but he didn’t ask him to get out of the car either. Roberto took that as license to continue. He shoved the rest of his chips into the middle of the table.

“Saw your tattoo. If we lived in a free country, I’m guessing you’d put III% on there, am I right?”

The cop just held eye contact, thinking.

Over the last seven or eight years Roberto was at DTRA, there had been a sharp increase in reporting on weapons acquisitions by well-armed domestic militias. He’d read those sections of the daily security briefings only cursorily, as his purview was almost exclusively overseas, but he knew enough to know the names of a few of the more prominent nationalist movements, which included the Three Percenters. An American paramilitary movement, its members pledged armed resistance against any attempts to limit private gun ownership by a tyrannical government. The name was derived from the claim that only 3 percent of the population of the original thirteen colonies fought against and defeated Great Britain in the Revolutionary War. In truth, the number was closer to 15 percent, but who’s counting when there’s a rhetorical point to be made.

The Three Percenters counted among their numbers a fair amount of law enforcement, and in fact a group of Jersey City police officers had been suspended in 2013 for wearing patches that read ONE OF THE 3%. Since then, members in public roles knew better and kept their beliefs on the down low. The southern nationalist flag tat was a popular and subtle marking.

Roberto had no doubt the cop was in. The only question was how far.

The cop held eye contact with him for a good ten seconds. Roberto looked back steadily. “The day’s coming, my man. The country we love and honor needs us to be ready.”

The cop turned the flashlight on again, playing it over the military crates in the back, taking one more look.

He turned back to Roberto. The only question was: Did Roberto look white enough to this prick to overcome his last name? The cop thought for a long moment.

“Drive safe, patriot.”

Apparently, he did. The cop clicked off the light, turned, and walked back to his car, his shoes crunching on the gravel.

Roberto didn’t stick around for confirmation. He put the minivan in gear and pulled away, not too fast and not too slow, lifting his hand up into the beam of the cop’s lights and giving a little thank-you wave as he put distance between them.

In his mind, he reverted back to his original position. I am very good at my job.

He’d be in Atchison in seven minutes.

Within thirty seconds of when Mary Rooney fired six shots into the chest of the weird guy who’d exploded, a thought occurred to her. She’d just killed a man. The unreal fact that he’d burst in a haze of green goo was less relevant to her than the objective reality of her situation. She had committed murder—okay, possibly manslaughter, depending on how you slice it, and he had been running at them at the time. But he was also clearly unarmed, and she was holding a weapon that, in the law’s eyes, had been stolen from the State of Kansas. You didn’t have to be a legal scholar to know this would not hold up well in a courtroom.

Naomi was doubled over, holding her ears in pain, some blood seeping between her fingers. Teacake turned to Mrs. Rooney, eyes wide. “Mrs. Rooney Jesus thank you God where the hell did you get that?!” he asked, all at once, his eyes fixed on the smoking cannon in her hand.

“I have to get out of here,” she said.

“No no no, you’re fine, you’re cool, you had to, this guy, he’s infected with, like, this horrible zombie shit, there was this deer that blew up, and weird shit in the basement, and he was—he was trying to barf on us, and…” She was just staring at him. He trailed off, hearing how he must sound. “You’re right. You gotta get out of here.”

From around the corner ahead of them, they heard voices, low and muttering. Teacake thought he recognized Griffin’s guttural grunting. He turned back to Mrs. Rooney, took her by the shoulders, and talked fast. “Not the front, go back that way, turn right twice, go out the side door.” He pointed to the gun, still in her hand. “Dump that in the river.” She didn’t move.

From around the corner, Griffin raised his voice. “I’m armed, motherfucker!” He was full of bravado, but Teacake could hear the quaver in it.

He turned back to Mrs. Rooney. “Go!”

“Thank you,” she said. She took off in the direction he’d indicated.

“You hear me?!” Griffin shouted again. “I’m all loaded! I’m coming in strapped!”

Teacake turned and shouted back, “Griffin! Be cool, man, it’s me! Teacake!”

Griffin yelled, “I got a gun, shithead!”

Teacake bent down next to Naomi and pulled her hands gently from her ears. Naomi looked up at him. Her whole head hurt, but the left side had a strange numbness to it, a total, disorienting silence that felt like a weight. The loud, sharp ringing in her right ear more than canceled out any quieting effect the silence might have had, and her whole head throbbed. Her vision was fine; she could see Teacake was just in front of her, his eyes full of concern. His mouth was moving—he was saying something to her. She couldn’t hear a word, but she could read his face, every expression heightened and more easily understood with her attention focused on it.

Maybe not hearing him was just the right thing for her at the moment. She watched his lips; she looked into his eyes and registered every minute change of his features. She didn’t know what he was saying, but better than that, she knew what he meant. That she was going to be okay. That he would not let her down.

She saw him turn and shout angrily back over his shoulder, at someone around the corner—maybe the police were coming? She saw the smear on the floor that had been Mike, and it was moving, seething, as if still alive. It was inching toward them.

Now Teacake was pulling her to her feet, urging her to do something. To leave? Yes, that was it, he wanted her to leave, in the other direction. Whatever the danger or whatever had to be done, he didn’t want her to be a part of it. Naomi was moved, maybe because she could only feel him, and his feelings were so powerful. He was saying one thing over and over again; she was no lip reader but could recognize her daughter’s name—he was telling her to get out of there right now because maybe he didn’t matter and maybe she didn’t either, but her daughter did, and she had to take care of her.

Teacake turned and shouted something over his shoulder again. Naomi couldn’t make it out, but whoever was at the other end of the hall was coming this way, and there was danger. Teacake turned his body and shoved Naomi behind him, pushing her down the corridor in the other direction. She could tell by the strength of the shove that he would not be argued with. She staggered back and moved around the corner, just out of sight of whoever was going to come down the hallway.

She lingered there for a moment, hidden, unsure what to do next. She couldn’t hear, her head felt like it was going to split in half from the pain rattling around inside it, she had no idea who was coming, and the only person who could explain it to her had just told her in no uncertain terms to get the hell out of there. Naomi froze.

A second later, Griffin came around the corner at the other end of the hall from Teacake, gun in front of him. His body was hunched, coiled in a SWAT team crouch. He swung the gun from side to side, as if expecting someone to lunge from one of the units and go after him.