William Weber - Turning the Tide

“It sounds too angry. You want something that’ll motivate and inspire. How about The Voice of Freedom ?”

John was heading back to their living quarters when he saw Diane was awake.

“I can’t say I’m surprised to see you up so early,” she said, rubbing her tired eyes. “I came to find you after the debriefing with General Brooks and you were sprawled on the bed, passed out.”

He smiled. “It was only supposed to be a quick nap.”

“Maybe, but your body said otherwise.” She went up and slipped her arms around him. “I’m glad to have you back in one piece.”

His expression changed.

“I heard about Jerry,” she said, holding him tighter.

“I wanna say he knew the risks, but he was practically shaking during the flight to Oak Ridge.”

“He went out making a difference, John. Isn’t that what most folks dream of?”

“I still can’t wrap my head around the timing of that Chinese attack.”

Diane loosened her grip and stared into his eyes. “Ask any good detective and they’ll tell you there’s no such thing as coincidence.”

“That’s what’s bothering me.”

“Need I remind you your only proof Phoenix exists is the word of a single POW who was being tortured?”

John frowned. “Not when she mentioned the spy she wasn’t. I could understand if we were in the middle of waterboarding her and she threw it out there to get us to stop, but that confession happened long after.”

Wringing her hands behind his back, Diane let go and pulled away. “I’ve been going back and forth about something, but after what you just said, I feel there’s something I should tell you.”

“You’re not pregnant, are you?”

“Oh, stop. Of course I’m not. It’s about Phoenix.”

John grew more serious as Diane told him how she’d seen Rodriguez acting suspiciously yesterday.

“I appreciate you saying that, Diane, but I’m pretty sure Rodriguez is clean.”

“Are you sure, John? I mean, how can you be?”

“Well, I can’t be certain about anyone but myself, can I?”

She looked hurt by that and he reached out to her, but she moved away from his outstretched hand.

“Look, you know what I’m trying to say. No one’s beyond suspicion. I’m sure there are people wondering about both of us. It’s just after what Huan said about a spy in Oneida, I couldn’t help looking at the cholera outbreak with a different set of eyes. Right now, I’ve got people trying to figure out who Phoenix might be. They’ve drawn up a shortlist of suspects and each of them is being looked into, and if you must know, Rodriguez is one of the people doing the sniffing.”

That seemed to satisfy her, although John had learned long ago that once Diane got an idea in her head, it was hard to break it loose.

“At this moment, Diane, the town needs your help getting back on its feet. Getting the greenhouse back up and running. Canning what food we have already. And I was thinking that some of the street lights might be used in the greenhouse once the power is restored. Ray Gruber and his boys are trying to fix the damage the windmills sustained during the battle. We need to find creative solutions to problems that didn’t exist before the EMP.”

He’d been trying to tell her to back off playing sleuth as nicely as he could, but it didn’t matter how well he sugarcoated it, Diane knew exactly what he was saying.

“There’s something else I think you should know,” he added.

“I’m not sure I want to,” she replied, moving to the kitchen where she began fiddling with a sink full of dishes.

“I guarantee you will. A young private stopped me yesterday after the debriefing to say she remembers seeing Brandon and Gregory at the front.”

Diane stopped what she was doing.

“She said she saw their position being overrun.”

“Oh, no, John. I don’t want to hear it. Not if you’re gonna give me bad news.”

He went and gently pulled her hands away from her ears. “She saw them surrendering to the Chinese. Which means they may still be alive.”

All the air came out of Diane’s lungs at once and she fell limp into John’s arms. “Oh, thank God.” She was quiet for a moment, probably saying a prayer. “So let’s go get them.”

“It’s not that easy. We need to wait and see if General Dempsey’s planning a counterattack. In the meantime, we need to get those leaflets out. How soon can Emma have them ready?”

“Tomorrow,” Diane replied without hesitation. “I’ll go over there myself and start cranking them out.”

A sharp knock came at the door. John opened it to find Henry, a crease of tension along his forehead.

“What is it now?” he asked, dreading the answer.

“It’s Huan, sir.”

“Our POW? What about her?”

“She’s gone.”

The beam from their flashlights bobbed up and down as John, Henry and three soldiers rushed to Huan’s holding cell. Oneida was on lockdown, the major avenues in and out of town guarded by small units tasked with keeping an eye out for Chinese incursions. If Huan’s training was anything like what American pilots received in SERE—survival, evasion, resistance and escape—then she’d know better than to travel via a major roadway.

Up ahead were the cells. A steel door secured that part of the jail from the rest of the building and a guard was posted outside twenty-four hours a day. The door to the cellblock stood ajar, but more disturbing was the body lying on its back, hands clasped over its throat. Dried blood stained the soldier’s fingers, his eyes locked in an expression of shock and horror.

“It’s Cooper,” Henry said. The man on the floor had been on guard duty. “We’ve sent teams with tracking dogs to run her down. With any luck, we’ll have her back within the hour.”

I doubt it , John thought as he bent down on one knee. The soldier’s throat had been slashed with a sharp knife. The line across his neck was almost surgical. “Box cutter?” John asked.

Henry flashed his light to gain a better look, his face registering discomfort. “Or a scalpel.”

Dr. Coffee’s face flashed in his mind’s eye. “Go to the doctor’s house and bring him in for questioning,” John instructed one of the soldiers, who nodded and ran off.

John stepped carefully over Cooper’s body and into the holding cell area. One of the cell doors was open in an otherwise empty room. On the floor was a set of keys.

“So the killer approaches the guard,” John speculated, “maybe engages him in small talk or distracts him somehow and then slashes his throat.”

“Why not just shoot him?” Henry asked.

“No way. Too loud. This had to be quiet to give Huan enough time to escape.” John paced back and forth. “If this was a citizen looking for some payback against the Chinese, then we would have found Huan’s body hacked to pieces.”

A vivid memory of Rwanda came to him. After the genocide, the streets were filled with survivors of brutal machete attacks. In most cases, their bodies still bore the disfiguring signs of attempted murder. It was the kind of sight you never got used to.

“This was someone from town,” John said. “An inside job.”

Henry seemed puzzled. “Really? How can you be sure the Chinese didn’t send some super-assassin?”

“Two reasons. The first is that a special forces operative would likely have used a silenced pistol rather than risk hand-to-hand combat. I mean, look at this hallway, they would never have gotten close enough before Cooper drew on them. Second, Cooper’s pistol was still in his holster and take a good look at the expression on his face. He knew this person and a knife across the throat was the last thing he’d expected.”