A third rocket hit the last vehicle and exploded into a fireball.
Pablo watched the flames bounce and dance off the vehicles. He couldn’t believe what had just happened, but most of all he couldn’t believe that he was alive. A feeling of divine fate came over him. He stepped out into the street with a feeling of invincibility and saw the burning vehicles as yet another sign that he was on the right path.
“Mommy! Mommy!” Haley cried out.
Samantha ran as fast as her legs would take her down the hall and into Haley’s bedroom.
“I’m here, honey, Momma’s here,” she softly said as she embraced Haley and began to rock her.
“I had a nightmare. I saw Nelson and he was dead,” she whimpered.
“It was just a bad dream, honey, it was only a dream.”
“But it seemed real!”
“It was just a dream,” Samantha said in a whisper.
“Is he ever coming back?”
Haley had been asking Samantha that every day since Nelson was taken away. Telling your children the truth about sensitive topics was a tough decision for parents. She and Gordon believed that it was okay to fudge the truth so as to keep the children’s innocence intact for as long as possible.
“He’ll come back one day. He’s just doing something with that man, then he’ll come back.”
“That man was mean, Mommy.”
“I know.”
“He said mean things to me and told me he wanted to kill me and kill you.”
Hearing Haley say this broke Samantha’s heart. The innocence she was attempting to protect was very difficult to maintain in this new world.
They both talked until Haley fell back to sleep in her arms.
Samantha tried to sleep too, but she couldn’t. She quietly snuck out her room and went downstairs to make some tea. At the bottom of the stairs the dark stain stood as a grim reminder of everything that had recently happened.
She walked into the kitchen, then went to the window and looked outside. The sun was coming up and a new day had begun. She looked for anything unusual and made sure the door was locked. She pledged that she’d never again be caught unaware. Without Gordon or Nelson to help, she was on her own.
The kerosene heaters that helped keep the house warm from the frigid air outdoors were a temporary luxury. Soon they’d run out of fuel and when that happened, they’d have to go to using wood exclusively to heat the house. Their food stores were good and medicines weren’t a problem. Gordon’s quick thinking months ago really had kept them alive.
A loud banging at the front door made her jump. She rushed out of the kitchen, pistol in hand.
She looked through the peephole to see Eric standing there.
“What’s wrong?” she asked after she opened the door.
“They’re back!” Eric said urgently.
Cruz’s condition had greatly improved, so much so that he requested they leave earlier than planned.
Taking advantage of the situation, Gordon got everyone on the road as quickly as possible and headed east. When they crossed into Idaho, he couldn’t help but think about turning the vehicle north and driving straight to McCall. That desire grew tougher to resist when he started to see familiar signage for roads that he knew.
When he saw the sign for Eagle Road, his heart skipped a beat. He was only two hours away from McCall. All he had to do was make a left from the off-ramp and drive directly north and in two hours he’d be at his cabin and in Samantha’s arms.
He then saw a sign for Mountain Home and an idea came to mind.
“Christopher, get on the radio and use this frequency,” he said.
“Who am I calling?” Christopher asked.
“Mountain Home Air Force base.”
“Gordon, what are you thinking?” Wilbur asked.
“I’m curious if the base is still functioning,” he said. It was a half truth. Though Gordon had promised to take them all the way to Cheyenne, if Mountain Home Air Force Base was still operational and had communications with Cheyenne, he’d just drop them there.
“Okay, so how do I change the frequency?” Christopher asked, looking confused.
Gordon didn’t answer; he quickly took the exit for Eagle Road and accelerated.
“What are you doing? Is everything okay?” Wilbur asked.
“No, it’s not okay,” he replied.
“Is someone chasing us? What is it?” Wilbur asked, concerned that a situation like what had happened in Hines was happening again.
“No, that’s not it!” he said excitedly as he made a hard left onto Eagle Road.
“What’s wrong?” Cruz asked, worry written all over his face.
“I don’t know, but when I see a sign that has my name on it with an arrow, I tend to follow it!”
“Emperor, please. He’s my cousin’s son. He hasn’t done anything wrong,” Pasqual begged. He was bound to a chair in one of the storage rooms in the damp basement of the capitol.
The small concrete-walled room at one time held supplies. Now it would be Pablo’s torture chamber. On a small table next to Pasqual sat an assortment of instruments—knives, an axe, screwdrivers, hammer, pliers.
“I’d have him speak but he can’t now,” Pablo laughed when pointed to the other man in the room. The other man was Pasqual’s cousin’s son, Jorge Ortiz. He was the man identified the other day at the house in Folsom. During his arrest, he resisted and was beaten severely. His cheekbones and jaw were shattered and he drifted in and out of consciousness.
Pablo took pleasure in torturing people. He specifically enjoyed it when they begged. Asking for mercy made him torture them more.
This is what Pablo was able to ascertain so far: Pasqual’s cousin, Maria Ortiz, the woman seen with Jorge, had emigrated from Venezuela twelve years before and had been living in Sacramento since arriving in the United States. After Sacramento fell to the PAE, Pasqual went to her to see if she needed anything. Her son was a specialist in the California National Guard and had left his post weeks before.
“Emperor, he no longer fights for the Americans. He left his ranks weeks ago. I was recruiting him for the Villistas, that is all. I was taking them food and bringing them to our side,” he begged.
Pablo had beaten him already. Sweat mixed with fresh blood on his face. His lips and nose were bleeding and a small cut to his face oozing.
“I have to say, Maria said the same thing, so your stories are identical. Even after she was raped, she kept her story straight. I was impressed. I’m planning on having Alpha Company fuck her next unless you tell me what you were doing there.”
“No, not Maria, she did nothing wrong,” Pasqual cried out.
“What are your plans? Kill me and take the throne? You insisted I ride in the convoy this morning moments before it was attacked and destroyed.”
“Sir, we intercepted a communication that an attack was imminent. We found an old frequency that the insurgents use to communicate. There’s been someone using it to communicate with the United States government. They know intimate details on movements and plans. We overheard the plans for an attack against you not ten minutes before it happened. They have someone on the inside.”
“Of course you would say that,” Pablo said, then walked over to Jorge with a knife and sliced his face.
Jorge woke up from the pain and cried out.
“Emperor, please. The communications we’ve received are coming from someone close to you. I know it sounds like it could be from me, but they’re not from me, I swear. I’m a loyal follower. I swore an allegiance to you.”
“Who else can it be, then?” Pablo asked. “Who else knows all my plans intimately?”
“The lieutenant governor’s daughter,” he blurted out.