“This is ridiculous. And a waste of time,” the short one said, glaring.
The taller of the two nodded. “Hulce, Terrance,” he said finally, staring straight ahead. “Staff Sergeant. 732-54-5221.”
“Keeley, Robert, Captain, 689-77-4423,” the other man said. He looked at Sarah, who still stood close to them. “I’m guessing we’d be pretty valuable in a prisoner exchange.”
“You’re right about this being a waste of time,” Sarah said, and then shot both men in the head with her suppressed carbine, quick enough for the second man, Keeley, to not even have time to react. She felt speckles of blood hit her face.
Jason gave a little shout of surprise and stared at the two men on the floor, blood pouring out of their heads. One of them kicked once, then was still. The other lay where he fell.
“Molon fucking labe,” one of the dogsoldiers in the room spat at the dead men. Then actually spit on the bodies. He looked up at Sarah and gave her a nod. None of the other dogsoldiers had much of a reaction.
“Anything in their gear we can use?” Hannibal asked her.
“I don’t think so, but I’ll double check,” she said, nudging the bodies with her toe just to make sure.
“Do it yesterday, I want to get the fuck away from those radios and those tracking chips,” Ed said to her. “Any other day I’d be happy to grab their pistols and that sniper rifle and all their ammo, but the thought of picking up anything else makes me want to throw up.” All the weight on his back made it seem like he was on an alien planet with extra gravity.
He looked at Jason, who was still openmouthed at what seemed to be a cold-blooded execution, nearly at his feet. “They were the traitors, son. Enemies of us, and the country, and people who just want to be free. Live free. These two blindly obedient men just following orders might have been competent soldiers, but what they were doing made them honest-to-God bad guys. They didn’t think so, they thought they were patriots. And they’d never be convinced otherwise, even if the end of the war saw them packing us all into boxcars heading toward a reeducation camp, or worse, for our own good. That’s why we’re fighting a war. The polite disagreements ended a decade ago. There’s nothing less civil than a civil war. One minute,” he called out just loud enough to be heard by the men outside the home. He checked his watch. They should have plenty of time to make the tunnel before the next satellite flew overhead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Lydia walked through the tunnel. Occasionally she wore skirts to work, even high heels, and when she would walk through the tunnel wearing those her steps would echo off the brick walls in front and behind her, making it sound like she was part of a crowd. Most often, though, she wore slacks and comfortable shoes. Today she was in jeans and running shoes, the one pair she had still in good shape. Not only was it casual Friday but wartime deprivations often made simply washing her clothes a trial. She really couldn’t afford a new pair of shoes of any sort; no one inside the city could. She checked her phone. She was on time, or at least not running late.
She entered the Concourse of the Fisher Building, a name which she’d always found confusing. Concourses in her mind should be above ground; this Concourse, on the other hand, was immediately below ground level. In fact, she’d heard once that the tunnel she’d walked through was officially an “underground pedestrian concourse”. It was a freaking tunnel, and the Concourse level of the building should be called the First Basement or some such, something not confusing to people. Wasn’t it in Europe somewhere where they called the first floor the ground floor, and the second floor the first floor? Idiots.
She continued north through the empty and echoing Concourse, vacant offices and long-defunct retail stores to either side. The staircase was on the left, wide and shallow stone steps. She took it up to the lobby and glanced to the right. There, by the old security desk near the south entrance were two soldiers. They weren’t paying attention to anything. They rarely did.
Lydia moved left, to the coffee shop. There was a short line, and she looked around while she waited. She hated to spend the money on coffee, but it was a loitering excuse and a prop both at the same time, in addition, of course, to being coffee. Once she got her cup she stood in the lobby for a bit, sipping it, then headed out through the east entrance, past the bank of elevators.
Outside, the pedestrian walkway to the New Center One building was right over her head. With Lothrop barricaded off at the end of the block the overhead walkway wasn’t really necessary to avoid traffic, but people still used it, especially in winter. She walked down to the corner of the building and casually looked around, sipping at her coffee. A Growler was parked about twenty feet away, at least one solider in it. Across the street, in front of Cadillac Place, where she worked, was another Growler. She’d seen four soldiers there earlier. There were maybe fifteen people on foot within two hundred yards of her, people who worked in the area. Mostly government employees, she assumed.
She walked west on West Grand, across the front of the Fisher Building, sipping at her coffee. She glanced into the Growler as she passed. Two soldiers. She was pretty sure they were checking out her ass as she walked away.
Once around the corner she headed north, and entered the building through the west entrance. The lobby there was three stories, with beautiful murals on the ceiling and large tile mosaics on the walls. Most of the stores on the ground floor were shuttered, but a few were open.
She checked the time on her phone, just to make sure, and casually made her way back to the staircase, and down to the Concourse level. The building’s maintenance office was up ahead on the right. The old wooden door was propped open and she knocked on it. There were two men inside.
“Hey Ricky,” she said to the skinny black man who was just putting on his tool belt.
“Hey there,” he said to her with an impossibly deep voice. Everyone always told him he should have been in radio with that voice. His eyes darted from Lydia to the other man present and back. A smile grew on his face. “I’m just heading out,” he said.
“We’re just friends!” the other man said loudly, the exasperation clear in his voice.
“Whatever man,” Ricky said with a smile. He grabbed a large metal toolbox and Lydia stepped aside as he headed out the door. “Don’t disappear all morning, Tom,” he called back over his shoulder to his co-worker.
He was pretty sure Tom and Lydia were a thing. She’d been coming by at odd hours off-and-on for months and then sometimes the two of them would disappear, sometimes for five minutes, sometimes for an hour. Ricky knew what that meant, but it was none of his business, really. Tom wasn’t married and Lydia was smoking hot, so he was more jealous than anything else. And as long as none of the tenants were complaining, their supervisor Eddie didn’t give a shit whether or not they were doing the work. Everybody got paid regardless. Not well, but some was better than none.
Lydia and Tom listened to Ricky’s steps growing fainter and then the slow thumps of his boots heading up the stairs for the main lobby. Tom took a deep breath. He looked nervous and worried. “You ready to do this?” she asked him. She was just as nervous, she just hid it better. She’d been in deep for the better part of two years, but today was going to be a hell of a lot more than just sneaking around and keeping her eyes and ears open and using dead drops.