They were all ensconced into their vehicles and driving eastward a few minutes later. Stewart was very quiet, too quiet for Max.
"Stewart? What's up?"
Max expected her to say "Nothing", in fact he had his response all lined up and ready to go, to cajole her into telling him what was bothering her.
Instead she said, "I think we're getting fucked up the ass by these guys."
"Wh-what?"
"Your friend, Bill and his two soldiers. By Draper, by Aubrey, by everyone involved in this so called mission."
"Whoa, just whoa, slow down for a minute. Draper, sure. Aubrey, maybe; you weren't there. But Bill? No way, uh-uh, never in a million years."
"A million years is a long time. It might not be on purpose on Bill's part, he could have been fed bad information and is just acting on it to the best of his ability."
"What are you talking about?"
"Why aren't the military guys going in here? Why didn't Draper come south instead of heading East? Why level with us about the bomb after we parted ways? I mean hell, why level with us about it at all?"
"One at a time please. I'll argue with you about things all day long if you like, but I can't answer everything in such a quick succession. What is bothering you most?"
"Everything!" Stewart yelled.
"Uh…"
"Fuck. I know Max, I know you can't help me out of this. Could you listen to me and give your perspective though? I need to know how fucked we are."
"I can do that, talk."
"Okay, first thing's first. Why do you suppose Draper leveled with us about the bomb?"
Max shrugged, "I've been thinking of that too, there wasn't any point. Except one; Draper wanted us to know that it would blow up and take out more than we had been told. He wanted to give us a chance to get away. When they told us about the bomb they gave us a safety distance, which we had to be at to avoid dying when it went off. If we would have hidden at the minimum safe distance for a nuclear bomb we would have died when this animatronic one went off."
"Postitronic. You think Draper told us that, just so we would have a chance to live?"
"I do and I think he wasn't supposed to either."
"What makes you say that?"
"Here is what I figure. If you are giving a group of idiots…well, that might be harsh. If you are giving a group that doesn't stand much of a chance for completing the mission, the tools to complete that mission, you want to give them the best chance of taking out the target."
"So far, Max, you are not helping much."
"Let me finish. Most people want to live. A bomb like this comes with an inherent risk to blowing the user up if they are not careful, along with the target. In order to be used properly the bomb has to be placed where the target is." Max held up his hand in a placating manner to keep Stewart from interrupting, "I said let me finish. So newbies like us need to set the bomb off as close to the target as possible, but that conflicts with us wanting to survive too. We might set the bomb too soon; this doctor guy might leave the area if we set it too far away. So they tell us it has a short range and we should be able to hunker down close to it and survive. Makes sense, are you with me so far?"
"Go on, but get to the point."
"What would we do if we knew the bomb was more devastating? We would feel comfortable setting it off further away from the target, giving him a better chance to get out of range. We would be hunkered down too far away to reposition it too, making it even less likely to try. That equals more of a chance for us to fail. Do you see?"
Stewart nodded, "I can see that is one argument. I am not saying that I agree completely with it."
"Well Draper, he is a tough guy, hard to trust and difficult to work with. I didn't ever get the feeling he wanted us dead. I think he went against orders to put that message on the bomb. I don't think it was a planned 'after you separate' thing by the top brass at all. I think he disobeyed orders."
"That's giving him a lot of credit. And your argument makes no sense at all. They could have just left it as it was and not told us anything."
"Well, that's all I got, whether it makes any sense or not. Next question." said Max.
"No, I don't think…"
"Next question. You asked my opinion and I gave it, you said you had a lot of questions, let's go through those first and if you still want to poke holes in my argument after that we can revisit this."
"Oh, we're playing that way are we? Fine. I'll do a two for one then. Why didn't the military send more soldiers or send Draper directly?" asked Stewart.
"Me. That is the long and short of it. I can pinpoint this asshole. I've been thinking back to my conversation with Aubrey and I am not sure we were the only group they inserted either. She said something to me before we parted ways, something about how was I sure she hadn't contacted the other teams? She used plural, when she was talking to me. From my perspective there is only one 'other team' out there, Drapers."
Stewart mulled this over, "You aren't really saying anything I haven't already figured out myself here. Somehow when you say it, things sound better. Are we on a suicide mission?"
Max leaned backed, he hadn't considered it. Given what he had already said about the bomb he was having a hard time stating 'no' outright. "I don't know. I know I have two kids back in Iowa and I know I plan to get back to them. But Stewart, I guess my logic with Draper and the bomb sort of indicates this may be a one way trip."
"I don't want it to be."
"Are you getting cold feet?"
Stewart shook her head, "No! No, this needs to be done, it just feels right somehow, but Max, you have to promise me something. Okay?"
"That depends on what it is."
"If it comes down to me dying to make sure you get away, you get away. Can you promise me that? No lamenting about it, no rationalizing it. If push comes to shove, you shove and get back to your kids."
"Stewart…I…I don't know. I mean how will I know something like that?"
"And not just me, either. If it comes down to all of us dying so you can live, you let us die. Get back to your kids. Bill's kids have Tricia, Ruben is old and Javier's family will know their son died as a hero. But you have to live."
"Why?" asked Max.
"I kinda like you Max and I want you to be happy and live to raise your kids the way you promised your wife you would."
They sat in silence for a while, driving down the road at breakneck speed. Max was clearly agitated, fidgeting in his seat and fiddling with the pockets on his jacket. Finally he said, "Stewart, I don't remember telling you about the promises I made to my wife."
"Oh, you didn't. But I know you Max, and I know you made her promises when she was dying to take care of the kids and I bet she gave you a list of how to do it too."
Max laughed, "Oh thank God, I thought you were crawling around in my head!"
Stewart looked sideways at Max and asked, "How do you know I am not? It's my job after all, to ferret out the truth. I'm a modern day Sherlock Holmes about this kind of thing."
"Sure Stewart, and I am your Watson, no problem."
"So what about Ruben? That guy is creeping me out lately."
"What do you mean?"
"He has something, some other power and he doesn't seem to want to talk about it."
"Well, he hasn't confided in me. Maybe I should ask Bill?" Max said.
"Yeah, if he has told anyone it would be Bill."
"Hey Stewart slow down a bit, there are zombies up ahead."
"On the road? I don't see them." said Stewart.
"No, I think they are away from the road, but about a mile ahead of us." They drove by a sign stating that Jacksonville was two miles ahead.
"We are almost to the point where we turn off to get on highway 1 aren't we?" Stewart asked.
"I think so, Bill said it was through Jacksonville though. Slow down, the zombies are close to the interstate up here, probably by this exit." The highway slowly rose above the four lane street the exit led to.