But the best the doctors could come up with was environmental poisoning. For some reason, her liver had stopped processing out the toxins she absorbed from food, water, and even the air she breathed. They accumulated, gradually destroying tissue in all her major organs. Finally, as her kidneys began shutting down, it was simply too much for her body.
When she died, Abraham was devastated, Jackson only slightly less so. Nellie had been the center of both of their worlds, and when she was gone they found they had little in common. Abraham began to suspect that part of the problem had been chemicals of the products that he himself was responsible for. How could he have been so blind, to look away from the consequences of what he was doing? Sure, he’d read the warning labels — even helped to write them. But he never, ever allowed himself to contemplate what the cumulative effect of all his chemicals on a susceptible body might be.
When the realization finally came, Abraham left his position at the company, cashed in his 401(k) plan, and headed for the mountains. He bought a stretch of land with a small cabin on it and began raising his own crops and animals. He hunted year-round, providing a steady stream of meat for the table, and he stored vegetables from the growing season in a root cellar. He lost himself in the mindless hard work required to keep his small spread going.
Jackson, at first, had had a harder time of it. Plucked from an upper-middle-class existence in the suburbs and transplanted into an alien world, he’d lashed out at his father. His mother was gone and nothing in his life made sense anymore. And, in his anger, he began looking for answers. Abraham struggled to keep the boy under control, but there were increasingly frequent incidents of vandalism, failing grades, and the beginnings of drug use.
It was Abraham’s quest for a program that could help him deal with Jackson that had led him to the Free America Now militia. At first, he thought they were primarily a social service agency with a good healthy dose of discipline and structure. Later on, as he found that their more privately held views reflected his own disillusionment with corporate American culture, he knew he’d found a home.
Jackson, too. He hooked up with boys tougher and stronger than he was who showed him the ropes. At first, Abraham was a bit uneasy about their influence on them, but when the destructive impulses and rages at first dwindled and then ceased, he could only be relieved.
In the last year, though, he’d come to understand that his reprieve from worrying about his son had been only temporary. Abraham was active in the organization — Jackson was a fanatic. His son embraced all of the values, and then extended his political opinions into what smacked of racism.
Over the years, Abraham had come to be a district commander for Free America Now. Jackson had risen to a leadership position as well, commanding a small company. They were everything that Kyle and Betsy Smart were not.
Jackson seemed frozen in place, his gaze locked on the TV. The flat, cold eyes betrayed nothing of his feelings. Finally, when the news anchor broke for a commercial, he turned to his father. “We don’t have much choice, do we?”
“No, we don’t,” his father answered heavily. “Not this time.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. The council will have to decide.”
“I have a list of targets. And contingency plans. All worked out, Dad. Just waiting for the word.”
And if anything, that was only the tip of the iceberg of things that disturbed Abraham about Jackson. His son was a violent man, seeming to take pleasure in the physical confrontations involved. But he was a thoughtful violent man, if such a thing existed. He sought out opportunities for violence and planned methodically and carefully for larger-scale operations. The one characteristic in all of his plans was that they were calculated to wreak maximum devastation among a civilian population.
Jackson’s cold eyes stayed locked on his father. “You know we can — I can — get away with it.” This time was the unspoken addition to the statement.
Abraham forced a commanding note into his voice. “You wait for orders. That clear?”
Jackson nodded. But as his enigmatic son turned his gaze back to the television, Abraham knew a moment of despair.
TEN
Smith, Williams discovered, was a woman of meticulous habits. Indeed, everything about her was meticulous — her uniform, her hair, and even the way she ate. He felt like a big, bumbling oaf next to her, his own massive hands clumsy as he watched her delicate ones pick a few remaining grapes out of her fruit salad. Even her daily routine on board the ship was orderly. When he’d found out that she always ate lunch late, he made a point of being there just a few minutes before her whenever he could. At first, he tried to tell himself that she would just think he was as well organized as she was, but he soon realized that she was on to him.
Not that she seemed to mind. The experience they had in common of being on different ends of the fire had formed a bond between them. More and more, he found himself admiring her for how she’d reacted, what she had done, and the determination she brought to her new duties inside the engineering department. Not that he understood everything she talked about. A lot of the mechanical stuff was over his head. Still, she seemed to enjoy explaining the intricacies of pumps and engines to him, and never made him feel stupid.
For his own part, he found she knew surprisingly little about aircraft, and he was delighted to share his passion for aviation and his growing technical expertise with her. She never seemed to be bored, although he could tell she failed to understand his fascination with flying.
“Maybe someday I’ll go to OCS and be a pilot,” he said, watching her as he did so. “Wouldn’t that be something?” It was a dream he often entertained, but had not shared with anyone. Aspiring to being an officer was like being the smart kid in high school — you took too much flack from everyone. The fact that he even cared what other people said about him bothered him. He had a feeling it would never bother her.
“I’ve thought the same thing,” she said, precisely spearing a grape in the middle. “Not flying, of course.” A dreamy look stole over her face. “I want to be like Captain Bethlehem over on Jeff. Maybe command an aircraft carrier.”
“Captain Bethlehem is an aviator,” he pointed out. “You have to be to command an aircraft carrier.”
Her eyes widened slightly at that, and he realized she had not known it. “A destroyer, then,” she said calmly. “A ship — I don’t care what kind. Any kind.”
“The other ships are just our escorts.”
She glared at him. “Escorts that the carrier can’t be deployed without. Besides, I think it’d be neat, being on a smaller ship. In here, you might as well be working in an office building. I still get lost when I have to go somewhere new.”
“I know what you mean.” They chowed down in silence for several minutes. Williams went over his plan again. “Hey, are you going to the movie tonight?” he asked, his voice determinedly casual.
“Maybe. What is it? One of those slasher films again?”
“No. Harry Potter. I saw it a long time ago but it was pretty good.”